long-winded

Long-winded is used to describe to someone or something that goes on and on—it can be applied to a person or to a speech or a piece of writing.

The adjective prolix can be used to describe a person who talks for a long time and uses a lot of words. It’s much more formal than long-winded.

The words garrulous, loquacious, talkative, and chatty can all be used to describe a person who talks a lot. They typically imply that such a person talks all the time—that they’re inclined to talk. Though it’s not always the case, this usually also involves them talking for a long time at once. The word voluble can also imply this, but it’s much more formal than long-winded.

When long-winded is applied to a speech or a piece of writing, similar words include verbose and wordy (which both mean having too many words), and prolix, which means both long and wordy. The adjective rambling describes speech or writing that goes on at length but doesn’t stay on topic. A perhaps more polite way of saying that a piece of writing is long-winded is calling it lengthy.

The direct opposite of long-winded is short-winded—meaning “brief, concise, or to the point.” Short-winded is not as commonly used as long-winded, and it’s more often applied to speeches or pieces of writing, as opposed to people. The words succinct and concise can both be used to describe people, pieces of writing, or speeches that get right to the point without taking too long or using too many words.

Long-winded can be used to describe people, speech, or writing.

Here are some examples of long-winded in a sentence:

• His speech was so long-winded that I almost fell asleep!
• My coworkers tell me I’m long-winded during presentations, but I just like to be thorough.
• I realized my essay was really long-winded and over the word count—I had to cut several pages. 

It’s by far most commonly spelled as long-winded.