florid prose
Overly elaborate language
Florid prose is writing that's excessively ornate—heavy with adjectives, elaborate metaphors, and decorative language.
The term is usually critical, suggesting the style overwhelms content: His florid prose made a simple story nearly unreadable.
Victorian novels and romance fiction are often accused of florid prose.
The opposite would be spare or minimalist writing.
- ornateElaborately decorated
- purpleHue between crimson and azure
- overwroughtExcessively emotional or elaborate
- baroqueExcessively ornate or elaborate
- verboseMore words than necessary
embellished · grandiloquent · bombastic · over the top · lush · extravagant · melodramatic · rhetorical · adjectives · Victorian · romantic · excess · gilded · opulent · swollen · feverish · heaving · bodice