logorrhea

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English

Etymology

From logo- (prefix meaning ‘word; speech’) +‎ -rrhea (suffix meaning ‘flowing’), probably modelled after verbal diarrhea. logo- is derived from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos, word; speech; utterance) (from λέγω (légō, to say, speak; to arrange; to gather), from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (to collect, gather)), while -rrhea is from ῥοία (rhoía, a flow, flux) (from ῥέω (rhéō, to flow), from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (to flow)).

Pronunciation

Noun

logorrhea (countable and uncountable, plural logorrheas) (American spelling)

  1. (often humorous) Excessive talkativeness.
    Synonyms: garrulousness, loquaciousness; see also Thesaurus:talkativeness
    Antonyms: reticence, taciturnity
    • 1894 October 12, “Literary Degeneration”, in Public Opinion , volume LXVI, number 1,725, London: Spottiswoode & Co., , →OCLC, page 460, column 1:
      These "Symbolists" are characterised by unbounded vanity and self-sufficiency; they are highly emotional; their thinking is hazy and disconnected. They suffer from "Logorrhea" or "sickly talkativeness," and are unable to perform any work which requires concentration and persistency.
    • 1976, James Monaco, “Rivette: The Process of Narrative”, in The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, footnote, page 312:
      Rivette, bluntly, suffers from a good case of logorrhea. Even if he had none of these rationales, he would still make long films. In interviews he speaks in endless, ebullient sentences that surround their subjects like spider's webs and sometimes suffocate them.
    • 1984, István Anhalt, Alternative Voices: Essays on Contemporary Vocal and Choral Composition, Toronto, Ont., Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 85:
      The baritone is angry, but still controlled: he does not indulge in compulsive over-rapid spurts of logorrhoeas but keeps to a 'chopped, short, hard, very pointed' staccato-like delivery, excited, but well articulated through interruptions of differing lengths.
    • 2013, David Caute, “Preface”, in Isaac & Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic, New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page xiii:
      His purchase of a Dictaphone no doubt encouraged his natural loquacity, his ingrained prolixity (which he himself logorrhoea).
  2. (often humorous) Excessive use of words in writing; prolixity.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:verbosity
    Antonyms: see Thesaurus:succinctness
  3. (psychology) Excessive and often uncontrollable speaking due to a mental disorder.
    • 1874 April, Thomas Laycock, “Article I.—On Certain Organic Disorders and Defects of Memory.”, in Edinburgh Medical Journal, , volume XIX, part II, number X, Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, ; London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., →OCLC, pages 869–870:
      But, then, these persons have not only a copia verborum as to knowledge, but a volubility sometimes amounting to a logorrhœa in expressing what they know—although that may not be much.
    • 1906 April, Clarence B Farrar, “Clinical Demonstrations”, in Henry M. Hurd et al., editors, The American Journal of Insanity, volume LXII, number 4, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 631:
      When the patient was admitted to this hospital five years ago, the symptoms of excitement in the wide sense, violence, aggressiveness, destructiveness, logorrhœa, were in the foreground as they had been during the previous attacks.
    • 1980, Mahin Hassibi, Harry Breuer, Jr., “Specific Language Dysfunctioning in Children: A Historical Overview”, in Disordered Thinking and Communication in Children, New York, N.Y.: Plenum Press, →ISBN, page 35:
      In agreement with the general consensus of writers on the subject, they affirmed that logorrhea (a loss of control over the flow of speech and subsequent flood of verbiage often seen in adult Wernicke's aphasics) is not characteristic of aphasic children.
    • 2011, Basant K. Puri, Ian H. Treasaden, “Classification, Aetiology, Management and Prognostic Factors”, in Textbook of Psychiatry, 3rd edition, Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 63, column 1:
      The quantity of speech may be increased in mania and anxiety but reduced in dementia, schizophrenia and depression. In logorrhoea, also called volubility, the speech is fluent and rambling, with the use of many words.

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