prose

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English prose,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman prouse and Old French prose,^[4][5][6] partly also directly from Latin prōsa,^[5][6][2] short for prōsa ōrātiō (“straightforward speech”).^[5][7][8] The Latin word is the feminine of prōsus (“straightforward, direct”), earlier prōrsus, a contraction of prōversus (“turned forward”),^{[4][7][9][10]} the past participle of an otherwise unrecorded verb formed from prō- (“forward”) and vertō (“to turn”).^[4][7] Etymonline traces the two parts to Proto-Indo-European *per- (“forward”) and Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[5] The Latin verb is also the source of verse and version.^[7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the first half of the 13th century, for prose and for a hymn.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A story or narration: about 1300 in Etymonline, probably before 1300 in Barnhart.^[5][6] The OED's earliest quotation is for the sense "language without metrical structure", from the prologue to Saint Jerome's epistle in the Wycliffite Bible (before 1382).^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "prose writing", in contrast to verse, is from the mid-14th century, and Barnhart finds it about 1338 in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle.^[5][6] The early sense "story, narrative" was obsolete by 1566; the OED suggests that it arose partly from a misreading of proces, the plural of process.^[4] In the Church a prose was a hymn sung after the gradual at Mass, a use recorded in English before 1398 and already in French.^[4][9] The idea of plain expression (1560s) led to "dull or commonplace talk" in the 1680s,^[5] and Young used prose figuratively in 1743 for whatever is plain or matter-of-fact.^[4] Chaucer used the noun seven times.^[12] The verb, to put into prose, is first found in Chaucer's Envoy to Scogan (c. 1393), and the sense "to talk tediously" from the 18th century.^[4] In Scots, Burns wrote of prose-folk, people who talk in prose.^[13] Johnson (1755) defined prose as language not restricted to a set number of syllables.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – a story or narration.^[5][6]
• c. 1338 – writing that is not in verse.^[6]
• before 1382 – language without metrical structure.^[4]
• before 1398 – a liturgical hymn, a sequence.^[4]
• c. 1450 – verb, to put into prose.^[4]
• 1606 – adjective, plain, commonplace.^[4]
• 1688 – a dull, tedious piece of writing (obsolete).^[4]
• 1743 – figuratively, what is plain or dull.^[4]
• before 1764 – verb, to talk or write tediously.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Ordinary written or spoken language, without the metre or rhyme of poetry: Her novels are written in clear, spare prose.
2. Dull or commonplace talk or writing.
3. A passage set for translation into a foreign language, especially Latin or Greek.
4. (Christianity) A hymn sung after the gradual at Mass; a sequence.

Verb

1. To write or rewrite something in prose.
2. To talk or write in a dull, long-winded way.

Adjective

1. Written in prose: a prose translation.
2. Plain and matter-of-fact; prosaic.

Word family

• proselike
• prose poem
• purple prose

Related words

• prosaic
• prosy
• verse
• version

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.