Sunday, June 28, 2009

orotund

orotund \OR-uh-tuhnd\, adjective:

1. Characterized by fullness, clarity, strength, and smoothness of sound.
2. Pompous; bombastic.

I have been cursed to stalk the night through all eternity, he went on, his voice orotund, carrying all across the playground.
-- Michael Chabon, Werewolves in Their Youth
Just once he should resist citing Melville's orotund pronouncement that "genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round."
-- James Atlas, "The Great Reminiscer", New York Times, September 3, 1995
. . .a down-at-heel philosopher who no longer thinks but gabs, the bore at the dinner table, growing more self-absorbed and orotund and cynical with each glass of wine.
-- "Melting in Sri Lanka", New York Times, March 29, 1987

Orotund derives from Latin ore rotundo, "with a round mouth," hence "clear, loud," from os, oris, "the mouth" + rotundus, "round." It is related to oral.

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