• sen-TEN-shus • adjective
1 : given to or abounding in aphoristic expression or excessive moralizing
2 : terse, aphoristic, or moralistic in expression
[Ro] plictisitor, plin de sentinţe [inv.], sentenţios, emfatic
Example sentence:
The paper that Jed handed in to his teacher was not so much a research paper as a sententious manifesto denouncing globalization.
Lucrarea pe care Jed a dat profesorului nu a fost atât o lucrare de cercetare cât un manifest sentenţios denunţând globalizarea.
Nowadays, sententious is usually uncomplimentary, implying banality, oversimplification, and excessive moralizing. The original Middle English sense of sententious was full of meaning, a meaning adopted from Latin sententiosus (from sententia, meaning sentence or maxim). In Modern English, sententious has sometimes referred to what is full of significance and expressed tersely.
