a. [f. L. loquāci-, loquāx (f. loqu-ī to speak) + -OUS.]
1. Given to much talking; talkative.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 161. To whom sad Eve … Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge Bold or loquacious, thus abasht repli’d.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 296, ¶ 1. The chief Exercise of the female loquacious Faculty.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XIX. 110. Loquacious insolent! she cries, forbear.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, II. 253. Thersites only of loquacious tongue Ungovern’d.
1814. D’Israeli, Quarrels Auth. (1867), 338. The new … philosophy insisted that men should be less loquacious, but more laborious.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iv. I. 460. He was not loquacious: but, when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved the envy of practised rhetoricians.
1901. Edith C. M. Dart, in Longm. Mag., June, 152. Abel, in an unusually loquacious mood, repeated his question.
2. transf. Of birds, water, or the like: Chattering, babbling. Chiefly poet.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 654. He fills his Maw with Fish, or with loquacious Frogs. Ibid., Æneid, XII. 694. The black Swallow … To furnish her loquacious Nest with Food.
1708. J. Philips, Cyder, II. 445. Blind British bards, with volant touch Traverse loquacious strings.
1725. Pope, Odyss., V. 86. The chough, the sea-mew, the loquacious crow.
1888. Barrie, When a Man’s Single (1900), 66/2. For a moment the water was loquacious as … punts shot past.
Hence Loquaciously adv., Loquaciousness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Loquaciousness, talkativeness.
1766. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom. (1767), I. vi. 220. She preserves the due mean between taciturnity and loquaciousness.
1807. G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. I. I. 18. The taciturnity of history, and the loquaciousness of archaiology.
1854. Hawthorne, Eng. Note-Bks. (1879), I. 83. The rooks were talking together very loquaciously.
