prose

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prose

(prōz)

1. Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure.

2. Commonplace expression or quality.

3. Roman Catholic Church A hymn of irregular meter sung before the Gospel.

intr.v. prosed, pros·ing, pros·es

1. To write prose.

2. To speak or write in a dull, tiresome style.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin prōsa (ōrātiō), straightforward (discourse), feminine of prōsus, alteration of prōrsus, from prōversus, past participle of prōvertere, to turn forward : prō-, forward; see pro-¹ + vertere, to turn; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

prose

(prəʊz)

1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) spoken or written language as in ordinary usage, distinguished from poetry by its lack of a marked metrical structure

2. (Education) a passage set for translation into a foreign language

3. commonplace or dull discourse, expression, etc

4. (Roman Catholic Church) RC Church a hymn recited or sung after the gradual at Mass

5. (modifier) written in prose

6. (modifier) matter-of-fact

7. to write or say (something) in prose

8. (intr) to speak or write in a tedious style

[C14: via Old French from Latin phrase prōsa ōrātiō straightforward speech, from prorsus prosaic, from prōvertere to turn forwards, from pro-¹ + vertere to turn]

ˈproseˌlike adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

prose

(proʊz)

n., adj., v. prosed, pros•ing. n.

1. the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.

2. matter-of-fact, commonplace, or dull expression, quality, discourse, etc.

adj.

3. of, in, or pertaining to prose.

4. commonplace; prosaic.

v.t.

5. to turn into or express in prose.

v.i.

6. to write or talk in a dull, matter-of-fact manner.

[1300–50; Middle English < Middle French < Latin prōsa (ōrātiō) literally, straightforward (speech), feminine of prōsus, for prōrsus, contraction of prōversus, past participle of prōvertere to turn forward =prō- pro-¹ + vertere to turn]

prose

Past participle: prosed
Gerund: prosing

Imperative
prose
prose

Present
I prose
you prose
he/she/it proses
we prose
you prose
they prose

Preterite
I prosed
you prosed
he/she/it prosed
we prosed
you prosed
they prosed

Present Continuous
I am prosing
you are prosing
he/she/it is prosing
we are prosing
you are prosing
they are prosing

Present Perfect
I have prosed
you have prosed
he/she/it has prosed
we have prosed
you have prosed
they have prosed

Past Continuous
I was prosing
you were prosing
he/she/it was prosing
we were prosing
you were prosing
they were prosing

Past Perfect
I had prosed
you had prosed
he/she/it had prosed
we had prosed
you had prosed
they had prosed

Future
I will prose
you will prose
he/she/it will prose
we will prose
you will prose
they will prose

Future Perfect
I will have prosed
you will have prosed
he/she/it will have prosed
we will have prosed
you will have prosed
they will have prosed

Future Continuous
I will be prosing
you will be prosing
he/she/it will be prosing
we will be prosing
you will be prosing
they will be prosing

Present Perfect Continuous
I have been prosing
you have been prosing
he/she/it has been prosing
we have been prosing
you have been prosing
they have been prosing

Future Perfect Continuous
I will have been prosing
you will have been prosing
he/she/it will have been prosing
we will have been prosing
you will have been prosing
they will have been prosing

Past Perfect Continuous
I had been prosing
you had been prosing
he/she/it had been prosing
we had been prosing
you had been prosing
they had been prosing

Conditional
I would prose
you would prose
he/she/it would prose
we would prose
you would prose
they would prose

Past Conditional
I would have prosed
you would have prosed
he/she/it would have prosed
we would have prosed
you would have prosed
they would have prosed

Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	prose - ordinary writing as distinguished from verse euphuism - an elegant style of prose of the Elizabethan period; characterized by balance and antithesis and alliteration and extended similes with and allusions to nature and mythology nonfiction, nonfictional prose - prose writing that is not fictional interior monologue - a literary genre that presents a fictional character's sequence of thoughts in the form of a monologue stream of consciousness - a literary genre that reveals a character's thoughts and feeling as they develop by means of a long soliloquy prose poem - prose that resembles poetry polyphonic prose - a rhythmical prose employing the poetic devices of alliteration and assonance literary genre, writing style, genre - a style of expressing yourself in writing
	2.	prose - matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression expressive style, style - a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period; "all the reporters were expected to adopt the style of the newspaper"

prose

noun

Quotations
"Prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order" [Samuel Taylor Coleridge Table Talk]
"Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it" [Jeremy Bentham]
"All that is not prose is verse; and all that is not verse is prose" [Molière Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme]

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

نَثْر

próza

prosa

proosa

próza

prosa

prósi, óbundiî mál

proza

próza

prose

[prəʊz]

A. N

1. (Literat) → prosa f

2. (Scol) (also prose translation) → texto m para traducir (also prose composition) → traducción f inversa

B. CPD prose poem N → poema m en prosa
prose writer N → prosista mf

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

prose

[ˈprəʊz] n

(= written language) → prose f

(SCHOOL) (= translation) → thème m

prose

n → Prosa f; (= writing, style) → Stil m; (Sch, Univ: = translation text) → Übersetzung f → in die Fremdsprache, Hinübersetzung f

prose

prose poem

n → Prosagedicht nt

prose style

n → Stil m

prose writer

n → Prosaschriftsteller(in) m(f)

prose writing

n → Prosadichtung f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

prose

[prəʊz] n → prosa (Scol) (translation) → traduzione f dalla lingua madre or madrelingua

prose

(prəuz) noun

writing that is not in verse; ordinary written or spoken language.

References in classic literature ?

[3] THE making of an anthology of English prose is what must have occurred to many of its students, by way of pleasure to themselves, or of profit to other persons.

Saintsbury has made to give technical rules of metre for the production of the true prose rhythm.

[7] If the invasion of the legitimate sphere of prose in England by the spirit of poetry, weaker or stronger, has been something far deeper than is indicated by that tendency to write unconscious blank verse, which has made it feasible to transcribe about one-half of Dickens's otherwise so admirable Barnaby Rudge in blank-verse lines, a tendency (outdoing our old friend M.

That powerful poetry was twin-brother to a prose, of more varied, but certainly of wilder and more irregular power than the admirable, the typical, prose of Dryden.

Leicester's School, with other Writings in Prose and Verse

The story of the Odyssey, abbreviated [13] in very simple prose, for children--of all ages--will speak for itself.

Well, the good quality of an age, the defect of which lies in the direction of intellectual anarchy and confusion, may well be eclecticism: in style, as in other things, it is well always to aim at the combination of as many excellences as possible--opposite excellences, it may be--those other beauties of prose. A busy age will hardly educate its writers in correctness.

View in context

And although Macpherson's book is called The Poems of Ossian, it is written in prose. But it is a prose which is often far more beautiful and poetical than much that is called poetry.

View in context

To Father Jape's kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly indebted.

View in context

Poets, of course, may be satisfactorily read in volumes of, selections; but to me, at least, a book of brief extracts from twenty or a hundred prose authors is an absurdity.

View in context

There is another art which imitates by means of language alone, and that either in prose or verse--which, verse, again, may either combine different metres or consist of but one kind--but this has hitherto been without a name.

View in context

Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favorite love-stories in prose and verse.