verbiage

noun

ver·​biage ˈvər-bē-ij 

also

-bij 

1

: a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content

such a tangled maze of evasive verbiage as a typical party platform

—Marcia Davenport

2

: manner of expressing oneself in words : diction

sportswriters guarded their verbiage so jealously

—R. A. Sokolov

Did you know?

Verbiage descends from French verbier, meaning "to trill" or "to warble." The usual sense of the word implies an overabundance of possibly unnecessary words, much like the word wordiness. In other words, a writer with a fondness for verbiage might be accused of "wordiness." Some people think the phrase "excess verbiage" is redundant, but that's not necessarily true. Verbiage has a second sense meaning, simply, "wording," with no suggestion of excess. This second definition has sometimes been treated as an error by people who insist that verbiage must always imply excessiveness, but that sense is well-established and can be considered standard.

Synonyms

• circumlocution
• diffuseness
• diffusion
• garrulity
• garrulousness
• logorrhea
• long-windedness
• periphrasis
• prolixity
• redundancy
• verbalism
• verboseness
• verbosity
• windiness
• wordage
• wordiness

Examples of verbiage in a Sentence

NOT the least of the many trials inflicted upon the Boston Red Sox has been a torrent of verbiage. Surely no team in recent memory has been so scrutinized, complained about and then elegized. —Charles McGrath, New York Times Book Review, 13 Aug. 2006

Fashionable courtiers in the Renaissance adopted the doublet.  … The cotton padding of this jacket, called bombast (the source of the term for inflated verbiage), was gradually increased to give courtiers the pumped-up look. —John Tierney, New York Times, 21 Jan. 1999

To find the height of arcane verbiage look no farther than Rule 10 of the rules governing Major League Baseball, in what is known as the Blue Book. The corresponding entry explains the waivers system—the procedures that pertain to certain player transactions—in a way that makes the Magna Carta look like part of the Jackie Collins oeuvre. —Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 25 Aug. 1997

Sure, some contract verbiage is so objectionable, it can be considered against public policy; in fact, the most arduous hold-harmless clauses would probably be thrown out of court. —Leon H. Ciesla, Plane & Pilot, March 1995

Is word processing truly the wonder it seems or will it turn out to be but a mere exercise in verbose verbiage? —Erik Sandberg-Diment, New York Times, 26 June 1984

The editor removed some of the excess verbiage from the article.

teachers loathe the verbiage that students resort to in order to pad a paper

Recent Examples on the Web

To say nothing of Payton’s offensive verbiage, the route concepts, the adjusting on the fly and the speed of NFL defenders once the ball is snapped. —Parker Gabriel, The Denver Post, 14 Oct. 2024

As mentioned before, the paper does not include any verbiage about attempting to crack AES encryption. —Joe Salas, New Atlas, 19 Oct. 2024

Analytical people may prefer more academic, formal verbiage. —Neven Dilkov, Forbes, 12 Sep. 2024

Company mission statements and pronouncements of purpose in gilded frames and glossy websites mean little if company actions fail to match lofty verbiage when put to the test. —Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune, 12 Aug. 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, from verbier "to trill, warble" (going back to Middle French verboier "to twitter," altered from Middle French dialect (Picard) verbloier, guerbloier, derivative of werbler "to sing expressively, trill") + -age -age — more at warble entry 1

Note: The meaning of French verbiage clearly shows the associative influence of verbe "word, verb" and its derivatives.

First Known Use

circa 1721, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Kids Definition

verbiage

noun

ver·​bi·​age

ˈvər-bē-ij

: many words and especially many hard words used to say very little