Adjacent Words

Sententious definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SENTEN'TIOUS, a.
1. Abounding with sentences, axioms and maxims; short and energetic; as a sententious style or discourse; sententious truth.
How he apes his sire,
Ambitiously sententious. Addison.
2. Comprising sentences; as sententious marks.
[This should be sentential.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing; "too often the significant episode deteriorates into sententious conversation"- Kathleen Barnes
2: concise and full of meaning; "welcomed her pithy comments"; "the peculiarly sardonic and sententious style in which Don Luis composed his epigrams"- Hervey Allen [syn: pithy, sententious]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English, full of meaning, from Latin sententiosus, from sententia sentence, maxim Date: 1509 1. a. given to or abounding in aphoristic expression b. given to or abounding in excessive moralizing 2. terse, aphoristic, or moralistic in expression ; pithy, epigrammatic • sententiously adverb • sententiousness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 (of a person) fond of pompous moralizing. 2 (of a style) affectedly formal. 3 aphoristic, pithy, given to the use of maxims, affecting a concise impressive style. Derivatives: sententiously adv. sententiousness n. Etymology: L sententiosus (as SENTENCE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Sententious Sen*ten"tious, a.[L. sentenciosus: cf. F. sentencieux.] 1. Abounding with sentences, axioms, and maxims; full of meaning; terse and energetic in expression; pithy; as, a sententious style or discourse; sententious truth. How he apes his sire, Ambitiously sententious! --Addison. 2. Comprising or representing sentences; sentential. [Obs.] ``Sententious marks.'' --Grew. --- Sen*ten"tious*ly, adv. -- Sen*ten"tious*ness, n.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Pithy, terse, laconic, succinct, concise, compendious, didactic, pointed, compact, full of meaning, very expressive, to the point, short and energetic.

Moby Thesaurus

Gongoresque, Johnsonian, Spartan, abbreviated, abridged, admonitory, advisory, affected, allegorical, aphoristic, aposiopestic, associational, axiomatic, bedizened, big-sounding, brief, brusque, cautionary, clipped, close, compact, compendious, compressed, concise, condensed, connotational, connotative, consultative, consultatory, contracted, convoluted, crisp, curt, cut, declamatory, definable, denotational, denotative, didactic, directive, docked, elevated, elliptic, eloquent, epigrammatic, euphuistic, exhortative, exhortatory, expostulative, expostulatory, expressive, extended, extensional, facund, figurative, flamboyant, flaming, flashy, flaunting, formulaic, formulistic, full of meaning, full of point, full of substance, fulsome, garish, gaudy, gnomic, grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-sounding, highfalutin, hortative, hortatory, indicative, inkhorn, instructive, intelligible, intensional, interpretable, labyrinthine, laconic, lexiphanic, lofty, lurid, magniloquent, meaning, meaningful, meaty, meretricious, metaphorical, monitorial, monitory, moralistic, orotund, ostentatious, overdone, overelaborate, overinvolved, overwrought, pedantic, piquant, pithy, platitudinous, pointed, pompous, preachy, pregnant, pretentious, proverbial, pruned, pungent, readable, recommendatory, referential, remonstrant, remonstrative, remonstratory, reserved, rhetorical, rich, sensational, sensationalistic, short, short and sweet, shortened, showy, significant, significative, sonorous, stilted, substantial, succinct, suggestive, summary, symbolic, synopsized, taciturn, tall, terse, tight, to the point, tortuous, transferred, truncated, warning