Prosaic Meaning and Usage

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Meaning:

adjective

- consisting or characteristic of prose.
- matter-of-fact; straightforward
- lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.

“prosaic details of everyday life”

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Derivatives:

prosaically - adverb
prosaicness – noun

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Use prosaic in a sentence:

1. The Board needs to focus less on lofty ideas and more on the prosaic operations and management-related issues that drive this company

2. Instead, the evidence is beginning to point to a less prosaic possible explanation.

3. “You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane”

4. He wanted to do something new; he was tired of the prosaic activities his parents suggested each day.

5. Anna came in a prosaic gray suit to help convince voters of her political savvy and gravitas.

6. The only entertainment would be a prosaic game of cards.

7. His instructor offered a more prosaic explanation for the surge in interest

8. I applied my attention prosaically to my routine

9. Most students would find all of this rather prosaic not to say archaic.

10. Life in a small industrial town seems very prosaic to the sons and daughters who have been away to college

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Synonyms:

arid, aseptic, banal, boring, colorless, common, commonplace, drab, dry, dull, earthbound, everyday, flat, flavorless, hackneyed, hardheaded, humdrum, lackluster, lifeless, lusterless, matter-of-fact, mundane, objective, ordinary, pedestrian, practical, pragmatic, prosy, realistic, regular, routine, sober, spiritless, stale, sterile, stodgy, tame, tedious, tiresome, trite, unexciting, unglamourous, unimaginative, uninspiring, uninteresting, unrhetorical, unromantic, vapid, workaday.

Antonyms:

creative, imaginative, inspired, interesting, thinking, exciting

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Mnemonic:

Mosaic is beautiful artistic work with full of vibrant colours.
Prosaic is opposite of that - dull, boring, very common.

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Some more examples:

1. I've always loved the sight of windfarms, yet to be honest being up this close it seems more prosaic.

2. The reality, however, is probably more prosaic.

3. After jumping naked into the fountain downtown in an attempt to escape his prosaic life, Mark found himself living an even more prosaic life in prison.

4. John was tired of his prosaic job as a clothes salesman.

5. “I confess I never was able to dislodge from my memory the ever so prosaic sentence found in his letter”

6. He walked straight over to the administrative buildings, where, in the most prosaic way possible, he asked for the information about the course.

7. For students, one of the more challenging and useful steps in the revision stage of the writing process surfaces in the removal of prosaic sentence formations that include clichés, simple narration, and vague expressions.

8. The prosaic fact of the universe’s existence single-handedly defeats the pragmatist and the cynic.

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