orotund
Syllables: or·o·tund/ˈɒɹə(ʊ)tʌnd/US/ˈɔɹə(ʊ)ˌtʌnd/
orotund adjective: of a voice: characterized by clarity, fullness, smoothness, and strength of sound; hence, of a person: having a clear, full, and strong voice, appropriate for public speaking, reading aloud, etc.
Adjective
orotund (comparative more orotund, superlative most orotund)
- Of a voice: characterized by clarity, fullness, smoothness, and strength of sound; hence, of a person: having a clear, full, and strong voice, appropriate for public speaking, reading aloud, etc.
- Synonyms:
- ore rotundo, resonant, rotund, booming, boom-boom, canorous, remugient, resounding, reverberant, sonoral
- Of writing, etc.: clear, effective, powerful.
- Of speech or writing: bombastic, pompous.
- A series of U.N. and government officials spoke. And spoke. And spoke. Their words were grand, their sentences endless. In orotund turns of phrase—indeed, in spiraling helices of phrase; in snarled fishing lines of phrase; in endless small intestines of phrase—the speakers ingeniously explored and...1990, Robert Klitgaard, “Beginning to Move”, in Tropical Gangsters: One Man’s Experience with Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, page 124
- He would also, you can't help thinking, have approved [Alan] Hollinghurst's discriminating eye and perhaps even enjoyed the half-facetious, half-adoring tributes Nick pays to his famously orotund late style, the "plums of periphrasis" Nick likes to slip into his conversation.2004 October 31, Anthony Quinn, “‘The Line of Beauty’: The last good summer [book review]”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from...
- Synonyms:
- grandiloquent, magniloquent, tumid, turgid
Noun
orotund (countable and uncountable, plural orotunds)
orotund meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
orotund in Tamil
- பகட்டான, உரத்த
orotund in Bengali
- পূর্ণতা, অতএব, জনসাধারণের বক্তৃতা
orotund in Malayalam
- sonorous, deep, strong
- ഘന, ഘനഗംഭീരമായ, ഗംഭീരമായ, ഗാംഭീര്യമുള്ള, ആഴമുള്ള, ശബ്ദന
- pretentious, pompous, affected
- സാഡംബരമായ, കൃത്രിമഗാംഭീര്യമുള്ള, അലങ്കാരബഹുലമായ, വാചാടോപമായ, ഭാഷാലങ്കാരമുള്ള, അലങ്കാരസമൃദ്ധിയോടു കൂടിയ
Synonyms of orotund
7 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of orotund
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more orotund |
| superlative | most orotund |
| Noun | |
| plural | orotunds |
Origin of orotund
PIE word *h₁óh₃s The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin ōre rotundō (“with a round mouth; hence, clear; loud”) (whence English ore rotundo), possibly influenced by rotund (“having a curved, round, or spherical shape; (figurative) of sound: full and rich”). Ōre rotundō is composed of ōre (the ablative singular of ōs (“mouth”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óh₃s (“mouth”)) + rotundō (the ablative singular of rotundus (“circular, round”) (possibly from rota (“wheel”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *Hreth₂- (“to run”)) + -undus (suffix forming adjectives)). The noun is derived from the adjective.
Words formed from orotund
Questions about orotund
- What does orotund mean?
- Orotund means of a voice: characterized by clarity, fullness, smoothness, and strength of sound; hence, of a person: having a clear, full, and strong voice, appropriate for public speaking, reading aloud, etc.
- What is orotund in Tamil?
- Orotund in Tamil is பகட்டான, உரத்த. See Orotund meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is orotund?
- Orotund can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce orotund?
- Orotund is pronounced /ˈɒɹə(ʊ)tʌnd/ (UK).
Words near orotund in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: orotund (page history and authors); orotund (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); orotund (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); orotund (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-orotund.wav.
Cite this entry: “orotund.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orotund. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
