[Late OE. wordiʓ, f. WORD sb. + -iʓ, -Y1.]
1. Full of or abounding in words. a. Of speech or writing: Consisting of or containing many words; = VERBOSE 1.
c. 1100. Aldhelm Gloss., in Napier, O. E. Glosses, 38/1416. Uerbosa, wordiʓ.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Cor., Prol. Wordy eloquence of philosophie.
1641. Bp. Hall, Answ. Vind. Smect., 103. In this their wordy, and wearisome Volume.
1713. Rowe, Jane Shore, III. i. To deal in wordy Compliment is much against the Plainness of my Nature.
1778. Bp. Lowth, Transl. Isaiah, Prelim. Diss. p. lxviii. The Chaldee Paraphrase … often wanders from the Text in a wordy allegorical explanation.
1853. Hallam, Mid. Ages (ed. 10), ii. Note 5. I. 297. If the Franks scorned the complex and wordy jurisprudence of Rome.
a. 1873. Lytton, Pausanias, i. (1876), 49. The Athenian fashion of wordy boasting.
1877. Kinglake, Crimea (1880), VI. ix. 309. This despatch was beyond measure wordy.
b. Of a person: Using an excess of words; = VERBOSE 2; occas. garrulous, talkative.
1382. Wyclif, Job xvi. 21. My woordi frendis [1388 ful of wordis].
1483. Cath. Angl., 423/2. Wordy, verbosus, & cetera; vbi Chaterer.
1636. Sir R. Baker, Cato Variegatus, 9. Words against wordy men, thou must not vse.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 448, ¶ 1. Phocion, beholding a wordy Orator, while he was making a magnificent Speech to the People.
1854. R. S. Surtees, Handley Cr., xiv. (1901), I. 106. The barber’s pretty but rather wordy wife.
1881. Stevenson, Virg. Puerisque, 80. A wordy, prolegomenous babbler.
† 2. Skilled in the use of words. Obs. rare.
1603. J. Davies (Heref.), Microcosmos, Wks. (Grosart), I. 80/1. Be he a Pleader, and a wordie Man. Ibid. (1609), Hum. Heav. on Earth, II. lxviii. Some wordy-men, by words, sought worthinesse.
1680. Otway, Orphan, IV. vii. You talk to me in Parables, Chamont; You may have known that I’m no wordy Man.
3. Consisting or expressed in words; of words; verbal. Now chiefly in phr. wordy war. (Often with mixture of sense 1 a.)
1627. W. Sclater, Expos. 2 Thess. (1629), 129. Intrusion on Gods Prerogatiues royall is rather in facts, then wordy profession.
1685. Baxter, Paraphr. N. T., James ii. 14. Is not a meer wordy Profession an unprofitable thing to your selves…? Will … saying you believe, profit to Salvation, if you … live not according to the Gospel?
1715. Rowe, Lady Jane Gray, I. i. These Clergy Quarrels, These wordy Wars of proud ill-manner’d Schoolmen.
1741. B. Franklin, Poor Richard (1890), 111. He that talks much, talks in vain; We from the wordy torrent fly.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, II. 463. All that wordy tempest for a girl.
1814. Byron, Lara, I. xxiii. To mar The mirthful meeting with a wordy war.
1860. Tennyson, Sea Dreams, 31. When the wordy storm Had ended.
