Verbosities

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of using more words than necessary to express an idea
2. Instances of excessive wordiness that obscure meaning rather than clarify it
3. Expansive verbal expressions that often lead to confusion due to their length and complexity

Etymology: "Verbosities" is simply the plural of "verbosity," so it is the form that names individual bouts of excessive wordiness rather than the quality itself. The noun "verbosity" entered English from Middle French "verbosité," which in turn came from the Late Latin "verbōsitās," a derivative of "verbōsus," meaning "wordy" or "full of words." That Latin adjective is built from "verbum," the word for "word," with the suffix "-ōsus," which signals an abundance of something, so the root sense is literally "abounding in words." English then formed its own adjective "verbose" from the same Latin source, and added the suffix "-ity" to it, which is why the noun looks like a native English formation even though its path ran through French. Because the plural names specific instances, the word lets a writer point at particular lapses, such as a single rambling sentence, rather than only at a general tendency.