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Having length; rather long or too long; prolix; not brief; -- said chiefly of discourses, writings, and the like. "Lengthy periods." Washington. "Some lengthy additions." Byron. "These would be details too lengthy." Jefferson. "To cut short lengthy explanations." Trench.

A minute and tedious discourse on trifling things.

Speech or discourse; a phrase; a form or mode of expression. " Stumbling locutions." G. Eliot. I hate these figures in locution, These about phrases forced by ceremony. Marston.

A combining form denoting a discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science; as, theology, geology, biology, mineralogy.

Instructive discourse. [Obs.] Spenser.

The quality of being magniloquent; pompous discourse; grandiloquence.

Speaking pompously; using swelling discourse; bombastic; tumid in style; grandiloquent. -- Mag*nil"o*quent*ly, adv.

A vain, unprofitable discourse or inquiry. [R.]

r weighty character; not insubstantial; of cinsequence; not be dispensed with; important. Discourse, which was always material, never trifling. Evelyn. I shall, in the account of simple ideas, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose. Locke.

A part of a discourse or of a period or sentence; a clause; a part of a verse.

A speech uttered by a person alone; soliloquy; also, talk or discourse in company, in the strain of a soliloquy; as, an account in monologue. Dryden.

A kind of allegorical play, so termed because it consisted of discourses in praise of morality between actors representing such characters as Charity, Faith, Death, Vice, etc. Such plays were occasionally exhibited as late as the reign of Henry VIII. Strutt.

The act of moralizing; moral reflections or discourse.

A sentence, phrase, or word, prefixed to an essay, discourse, chapter, canto, or the like, suggestive of its subject matter; a short, suggestive expression of a guiding principle; a maxim. It was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works, ... "Serve God, and be cheerful." Addison.

That part of a discourse which recites the time, manner, or consequences of an action, or simply states the facts connected with the subject.

Existing in idea only; visionary; whimsical. Discourses of speculative and notional things. Evelyn.

Fell. Declining from the noon of day, The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray. Pope His discourse tends obliquely to the detracting from others. Addison.

Foolish discourse. [R.]

An elaborate discourse, delivered in public, treating an important subject in a formal and dignified manner; especially, a discourse having reference to some special occasion, as a funeral, an anniversary, a celebration, or the like; -- distinguished from an argument in court, a popular harangue, a sermon, a lecture, e…

lic speaking in an eloquent or effective manner; the exercise of rhetorical skill in oral discourse; eloquence. "The oratory of Greece and Rome." Milton. When a world of men Could not prevail with all their oratory. Shak.