Sententious

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              How he apes his sire,
              Ambitiously sententious!              --Addison.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Comprising or representing sentences; sentential. [Obs.]
        "Sententious marks." --Grew.
        [1913 Webster] -- {Sen*ten"tious*ly}, adv. --
        {Sen*ten"tious*ness}, n.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  sententious
       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}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  150 Moby Thesaurus words for "sententious":
     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