voluble

/ˈvɑljəbəl/

/ˈvɔljubəl/

Voluble describes someone who talks a lot, like your aunt who can’t stop telling you to cut your hair or a political candidate who makes twenty speeches on the day before the election.

Have you ever found it especially hard to interrupt someone who talks a lot when he or she gets on a roll? If so, it won’t surprise you that the adjective voluble traces back to the Latin word volvere, meaning “to roll.” The word voluble describes talking continuously, fluently, at great length, in a steady flow. You’ll know it when you meet voluble talkers: they just keep rolling on and on.

Definitions of voluble

1. adjective

   marked by a ready flow of speech
   “she is an extremely voluble young woman who engages in soliloquies not conversations”

   synonyms:

   communicative, communicatory

   able or tending to communicate

   prolix

   tediously prolonged or tending to speak or write at great length

   chatty, gabby, garrulous, loquacious, talkative, talky

   full of trivial conversation

   antonyms:

   taciturn

   habitually reserved and uncommunicative

   incommunicative, uncommunicative

   not inclined to talk or give information or express opinions

   breviloquent, concise

   expressing much in few words

   buttoned-up

   (British colloquial) not inclined to conversation

   reticent, untalkative

   not inclined to talk or provide information