sententious
Annoyingly full of maxims
Sententious describes speech or writing that affects a moralizing, preachy tone—offering wisdom or judgment in a self-important way: He delivered sententious advice about hard work while inheriting his fortune.
The word carries a negative connotation, suggesting the speaker's pronouncements are pompous or trite rather than genuinely wise.
A sententious style favors pithy maxims and weighty pronouncements.
Traditional saying expressing truth
- adageTraditional pithy truth
- maximBrief moral principle
- sayingShort, wise expression
- epigramPithy, memorable saying
dictum · precept · axiom · apothegm · gnome · saw · byword · motto
Smugly certain of correctness
- sanctimoniousFeigning moral superiority
- holier-than-thouSmugly moralistic toward others
- preachyExcessively moralizing in tone
- sermonizingLecturing on morals
didactic · moralizing · priggish · pietistic · pharisaical · smug · puritanical · dogmatic
Pretentiously elevated in speech
- magniloquentUsing pompous, elevated rhetoric
- bombasticExcessively inflated language
- orotundBombastically resonant in speech
- pretentiousFalsely grand or important
highfalutin · grandiose · ostentatious · self-important · portentous · sonorous · lofty · inflated
proverb
Traditional saying expressing truth
epigram · dictum · precept · axiom · apothegm · gnome · saw · byword · motto · truism
self-righteous
Smugly certain of correctness
- sanctimoniousFeigning moral superiority
- holier-than-thouSmugly moralistic toward others
- preachyExcessively moralizing in tone
sermonizing · didactic · moralizing · priggish · pietistic · pharisaical · smug · puritanical · dogmatic · homiletic
grandiloquent
Pretentiously elevated in speech
- magniloquentUsing pompous, elevated rhetoric
- bombasticExcessively inflated language
- orotundBombastically resonant in speech
pretentious · highfalutin · grandiose · ostentatious · self-important · portentous · sonorous · lofty · inflated · turgid
sententioushumble
Unassuming about oneself
unpretentious · modest · unassuming · self-deprecating · plain-spoken
sententiousverbose
More words than necessary
wordy · prolix · long-winded · rambling · diffuse
sententiousunpretentious
Lacking false superiority
genuine · sincere · authentic · straightforward · plain-spoken
sentence, sentient, sentenced, sentences, sentience, sentencing