These words refer to the use of more words than necessary to make a statement. Verbose is formal, wordy less formal and long-winded the most informal, but all are similar in pointing to the mere fact of an excess of words in speech or writing, without specifying further: a verbose chapter on foreign affairs; a wordy poem on a familiar subject; a long-winded argument. Verbose and long-winded are more general than wordy , since, in addition to describing a specific example of excessive wordage, they are more likely to typify a writer or speaker, particularly garrulous; a verbose story teller who left his captive audience stony-eyed with boredom; so long-winded I thought he would never finish.

Redundant and pleonastic can pertain to a particular example or a whole statement, but rarely to a writer or speaker. In any case, they both refer to excessive wordage that results from tautological or unnecessary expressions. Redundant is of moderate formality and is restricted almost completely to indicating an excess caused by tautology: redundant phrases like "essential requisite" or fundamental basis." It is also more likely to pinpoint specific examples than to typify a whole style. Pleonastic , by contrast, is the most formal of these words; it can refer to specific redundant examples: a speech full of pleonastic phrases. But it is more general in pertaining, as well, to a whole speaking or writing style that is wordy or riddled with redundant expressions, especially when the style is complicated or pretentious: the pleonastic super-elegance of the standard 19th-century Sunday sermon.

Repetitious and diffuse specify a particular fault that results in a wordy, long-winded or verbose style. Repetitious points to excess because of the needless restatement of already established points: repetitious commercials that relentlessly hammer home their slogans. The word can refer to the speaker or writer himself: a repetitious debater whose arguments approached the simple-mindedness of propaganda. Diffuse suggests an excess of words that results when a piece of discourse is spread out, rambling or poorly ordered in its movement from statement to statement: an essay so diffuse that it becomes almost impossible to grasp the points the author wishes to make.

Prolix approaches pleonastic in formality, but is somewhat different from the rest of these words in indicating a piece of discourse that is both tedious and unnecessarily long, with the suggestion that the whole approach is excessively intricate or complicated: a prolix contract unintelligible to anyone but a legal expert. The word can also refer to specific examples of involuted syntax.

• When too many phrases interrupt the normal flow from subject to verb, a prolix sentence can result.