''prosaic'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708144405-00-⌔

prosaic - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

prosaic (comparative more prosaic, superlative most prosaic)

• Pertaining to or having the characteristics of prose.
  • ✤ Antonym: poetic
  • ✤ The tenor of Eliot’s prosaic work differs greatly from that of his poetry.
• (of writing or speaking) Straightforward; matter-of-fact; lacking the feeling or elegance of poetry.
  • ✤ I was simply making the prosaic point that we are running late.
• (main usage, usually of writing or speaking but also figurative) Overly plain, simple or commonplace, to the point of being boring.
  • ✤ Synonyms: humdrum, dull, unimaginative; see also Thesaurus: boring
  • ✤ His account of the incident was so prosaic that I nodded off while reading it.
  • ✤ She lived a prosaic life.
  • ✤ Our people are the most prosaic in the world, but the most faithful; and with curious reverence we keep up and transmit, from generation to generation, the superstition of what we call the education of a gentleman.¹
  • ✤ Their steepness and abruptness were even greater than I had imagined from hearsay, and suggested nothing in common with the prosaic objective world we know.²
  • ✤ Ultimately, though, the more prosaic goals carried the greater significance in this contest. Madrid have managed only one clean sheet on their way to winning this competition.³

Etymology

From Middle French prosaïque, from Medieval Latin prosaicus (“in prose”), from Latin prosa (“prose”), from prorsus (“straightforward, in prose”), from Old Latin provorsus (“straight ahead”), from pro- (“forward”) + vorsus (“turned”), from vertō (“to turn”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡wer- (“to turn, to bend”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /pɹəʊˈzeɪ.ɪk/
• (US) IPA: /pɹoʊˈzeɪ.ɪk/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -eɪɪk

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

1. 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC: ↩

2. 1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 6, in The Whisperer in Darkness: ↩

3. 2017 June 3, Daniel Taylor, “Real Madrid win Champions League as Cristiano Ronaldo double defeats Juve”, in The Guardian (London) ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩