prose

Etymology

From Middle English prose, from Old French prose, from Latin prōsa (“straightforward”) from the term prōsa ōrātiō (“a straightforward speech – i.e. without the ornaments of verse”). further etymology and related terms The term prōsa (“straightforward”), a colloquial form of prorsa (“straight forwards”), the feminine form prorsus (“straight forwards”), from Old Latin prōvorsus (“moving straight ahead”), from pro- (“forward”) + vorsus (“turned”), form of vertō (“I turn”). Compare verse.

noun

1. Language, particularly written language, not intended as poetry.
   Though known mostly for her prose, she also produced a small body of excellent poems.
   ...Or if Sion Hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow’d Faft by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th’ Ionian Mounts while it pursues 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost (1st ed)
2. Language which evinces little imagination or animation; dull and commonplace discourse.
   ...the vehicle is plodding prose, but the effect is none the less poignant. And in regard to this I may say that in a hundred places in Trollope the extremity of pathos is reached by the homeliest means. 1888, Henry James, Partial Portraits, Macmillan
3. (Roman Catholicism) A hymn with no regular meter, sometimes introduced into the Mass.
   Proses are parts of the Office of the Mass which are sung just before the Gospel, upon great Festivals. The French also call those Rhythmical Hymns Proses, which are sung in their Offices in the Church of Rome, in which Rhime only, and not Quantity of Syllables, is observed. 1699, A new ecclesiastical history

verb

1. To write or repeat in a dull, tedious, or prosy way.
   Pray, do not prose, good Ethelbert, but speak; What is your purpose? 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act I, scene II, verses 189-190
   Already he felt himself near to being a celebrity. He had astonished Eton. That was a good beginning. Papa might prose, knowing, of course, nothing of the poetry of caricature, of the wild joys and the laurels that crown the whimsical. So while Mr. Lane hunted adjectives, and ran sad-sounding and damnatory substantives to earth, Eustace hugged himself, and secretly chuckled over his pilgrim's progress towards the pages of Vanity Fair. 1896, Robert Smythe Hichens, The Folly of Eustace