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Prosing   Listen
noun
Prosing  n.  Writing prose; speaking or writing in a tedious or prosy manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prosing" Quotes from Famous Books



... dining with him, as he embarked three days after his arrival. About six o'clock in the evening I reached the "Blue Postesses" where the midshipmen put their chestesses and eat their breakfastesses. Next morning, and whilst I was prosing over my breakfast, in walked a midshipman, about twenty years of age, with a face which appeared to have been rolled down Deal beach a dozen times. "Waiter," said he, "have you in the house a young officer lately arrived ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... Highbury and lived in a very small way with her mother, a very old lady almost past everything but tea and quadrille, she confessed that if she thought she would ever be like Miss Bates, "so silly, so satisfied, so smiling, so prosing, so undistinguishing, so unfastidious, and so ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... down, all aching and tired, in the midst of this never-unclosing Of door or window that makes it look as if truth herself were dozing; I will sit me down and make me a tent, call it poetizing or prosing, Of what may be lying within my reach, things at ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... any other remark, on her side, than the necessary remark in the pocket-book. She made another entry under the head of "Good": "I am old enough to consent, and so is Allan too. Go on," resumed Neelie, looking over the reader's shoulder. "Never mind all that prosing of Blackstone's, about the husband being of years of discretion, and the wife under twelve. Abominable wretch! the wife under twelve! Skip to the third incapacity, if ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... it; therefore they are donkeys.—The lecturer will allow us to say that he is the donkey; we know we shall grumble at old age, but we want to live through youth and manhood, IN SPITE of the troubles we shall groan over.—There was considerable prosing as to what old age can do and can't.—True, but not new. Certainly, old folks can't jump,—break the necks of their thigh-bones, (femorum cervices,) if they do; can't crack nuts with their teeth; can't climb a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... languages, they must know how to produce their knowledge without pedantry or affectation. The memory may in vain be stored with classical precedents, unless these can be brought into use in speaking or writing without the parade of dull citation, or formal introduction. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, to some prosing tormentor, "I would rather a man would knock me down, than to begin to talk to me of the Punic wars." A public speaker, who rises in the House of Commons, with pedantry prepense to quote Latin or Greek, is coughed or laughed down; but the beautiful ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drucken to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing, pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's composition; but a creature of this calibre you can ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... she died and the story of her life? I do well; I do; p'raps better nor most. You want to hear about her; maybe you would find it kind of prosing; but there, the afternoon sun is pretty hot, and the haymakers out there in the meadows have got a hard time ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... some people so incorrigibly stupid and prosing, that wherever they are anxious of securing respect, silence would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... are up among the whins. Some elders, full of godly zeal, Turn crazy about rod and reel; And ministers, reputed wise, Take service with the Lord of Flies (Beelzebub), and like the work Better than prosing in a kirk. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... when Gomez Arias turned round, took up a cane that lay near him, and walking very deliberately to his valet with the most perfect composure—"Now, Roque," he said, "you must allow I have listened very attentively to your prosing. I have had quite enough of your nonsense for this morning, so I beg you to close your arguments, unless you really wish that I should honor them with ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... pleader who clacks, in his client's behalf, His technical stuff for three hours and a half; Or the fellow who tells you a long stupid story And over and over the same lays before ye; Or the member who raves till the whole house are dosing. What d'ye say of such men? Why you say they are prosing. So, of course, then, if prose is so tedious a crime, It of consequence follows, there's virtue in rhime. The best piece of prose that I've heard a long while, Is what gallant Nelson has sent from THE NILE. ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... of our lives, our liberties, and our property, there were none present belonging to the Whig or Opposition side of the House)—and after a considerable deal of beating about the bush, which I saw made the Chancellor of the Exchequer rather uneasy in his seat, I discovered that the prosing gentleman, whose name was Littleton or Thornton, was prattling about the Savings' Banks, into which it appeared that he had been inquiring rather more inquisitively than the little Chancellor approved of. The result of his inquiry, he stated to be a discovery, that three-fourths ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... infant's guilelessness, And his song of sorrow more Than the crown the Psalmist wore Who shall then, with pious zeal, At our moss-grown thresholds kneel, From a stained and stony page Reading to a careless age, With a patient eye like thine, Prosing tale and limping line, Names and words the hoary rime Of the Past has made sublime? Who shall work for us as well The antiquarian's miracle? Who to seeming life recall Teacher grave and pupil small? Who shall give to thee ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... of some one talking, talking—I seldom knew what, or whether it was counsel, witness, judge, or prisoner, that was speaking. I was like one asleep at a foolish lecture, who hears in dreams, and only wakes when the prosing stops. Was it not prosing? What was it to me what they said? They could not understand me—my motives—my excuses; the whole pleading, on my side as well as the crown's, seemed one huge fallacy—beside the matter altogether—never ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... expectations,—and the necessity of being so accomplished in all useful branches of knowledge, as might, in case of accidents, supply any defalcation in our rank and fortune;—as if any art or science could make amends for the loss of an Earldom, and twelve thousand a-year! All this prosing seemed to my anxious mind designed to prepare me for some unfortunate change; and when I was old enough to make such private enquiries as lay in my power, I became still more persuaded that my right honourable father nourished some thoughts of making an honest woman of Marie de Martigny, and a legitimate ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them; the ridicule of young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is easy to talk of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays waste a whole civilized party of beings by prosing, reflect upon the joy he spoils and the misery he creates in the course of his life, and that any one who listens to him through politeness would prefer toothache or ear-ache to his conversation? Does he consider the great uneasiness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... Crawford at home. The Sotherton scheme was mentioned of course. It was hardly possible, indeed, that anything else should be talked of, for Mrs. Norris was in high spirits about it; and Mrs. Rushworth, a well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who thought nothing of consequence, but as it related to her own and her son's concerns, had not yet given over pressing Lady Bertram to be of the party. Lady Bertram constantly declined it; but her placid manner of refusal made Mrs. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... and schemes seemed instantaneously to shrivel up and turn to ashes, and drop from me, and leave me naked and desolate. Sometimes it came when I read a book of philosophy; or listened on a still, hot Sunday to a dull preacher—they were mostly dull—prosing away to a sleepy, fashionable congregation about Daniel in the lions' den, or some other equally remote matter; or when I walked in crowded thoroughfares; or when I heard some great politician out of office—out in the cold, like a miserable working-man with no work to do—hurling anathemas at ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... Tom, "you know I always enjoy your company, but I don't recollect to have found you in so prosing a humour before—Pray, which way are ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the evening. He was infinitely forlorn and wearisome by his mere dismal presence. I think these ladies tolerated his frequent visits because of an ancient friendship with Mr. Haldin, the father, or something of that sort. I made up my mind that if I found him prosing away there in his feeble voice I should remain but a ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... said Traddles, coming back to his chair; 'and this is the end of my prosing about myself, I get on as well as I can. I don't make much, but I don't spend much. In general, I board with the people downstairs, who are very agreeable people indeed. Both Mr. and Mrs. Micawber have seen a good deal of life, and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at the schools, it was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly the latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier, in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favored to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... Jack after dinner. Starve me, keep me from books and honest people, educate me to love dice, gin, and pleasure, and put me on Hounslow Heath, with a purse before me, and I will take it. "And I shall be deservedly hanged," say you, wishing to put an end to this prosing. I don't say No. I can't but accept the world as I find it, including a rope's end, as long ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... Dowf, dowff, dull. Dowie, drooping, mournful. Dowilie, drooping. Downa, can not. Downa-do (can not do), lack of power. Doylt, stupid, stupefied. Doytin, doddering., Dozen'd, torpid. Dozin, torpid. Draigl't, draggled. Drant, prosing. Drap, drop. Draunting, tedious. Dree, endure, suffer. Dreigh, v. dreight. Dribble, drizzle. Driddle, to toddle. Dreigh, tedious, dull. Droddum, the breech. Drone, part of the bagpipe. Droop-rumpl't, short-rumped. Drouk, to ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... opportunity of showing what he can do, and you ought to mix in society and see whether you meet anyone you think you can like better. There is no worse time for finding out a mistake of that sort, than after marriage." And so the kind soul prosed on, and would, possibly, have gone on prosing for a few hours more, had I not interrupted one of his sentences by saying I would not have Miss Elmsdale bound by any engagement, or consider herself ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... were broached, or, to pursue the comparison, if anybody lifted him up, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity. He had the tic-douloureux occasionally, and then he might be said to be muffled, because he did not make quite as much noise as at other times, when he would go on prosing, rat-tat-tat the same thing over and over again. He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out for a wife with money. He had a life interest worth about 300l. a year—he was exceedingly vain, and inordinately selfish. He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... plan comprehends. Characters of folly or simplicity, such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, are ridiculous when first presented, but if too often brought forward, or too long dwelt on, their prosing is apt to become as tiresome in fiction as in real society.' The Reviewer, in 1821, on the contrary, singles out the fools as especial instances of the writer's abilities, and declares that in this respect she shows a regard to character hardly exceeded by Shakspeare ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh



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