PROSE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does prose mean? 

• PROSE (noun)
  The noun PROSE has 2 senses:

1. ordinary writing as distinguished from verse

2. matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression

  Familiarity information: PROSE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PROSE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Ordinary writing as distinguished from verse

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("prose" is a kind of...):

genre; literary genre; writing style (a style of expressing yourself in writing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "prose"):

euphuism (an elegant style of prose of the Elizabethan period; characterized by balance and antithesis and alliteration and extended similes with and allusions to nature and mythology)

nonfiction; nonfictional prose (prose writing that is not fictional)

interior monologue (a literary genre that presents a fictional character's sequence of thoughts in the form of a monologue)

stream of consciousness (a literary genre that reveals a character's thoughts and feeling as they develop by means of a long soliloquy)

prose poem (prose that resembles poetry)

polyphonic prose (a rhythmical prose employing the poetic devices of alliteration and assonance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("prose" is a kind of...):

expressive style; style (a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period)

Derivation:

prosaic (not challenging; dull and lacking excitement)

prosaic (lacking wit or imagination)

prosaic (not fanciful or imaginative)

 Context examples 

He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin's prose.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But let me observe that all histories are against you—all stories, prose and verse.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Prose was certainly an easier medium.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"No more there is! Will you have hash or fishballs for breakfast?" asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Nonfictional prose forming an independent part of a publication.

(Article, NCI Thesaurus)

I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He would write—everything—poetry and prose, fiction and description, and plays like Shakespeare.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It is a sort of prologue to the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by matter-of-fact prose.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)