fulsome

Definition

Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.

Etymology

From Middle English fulsom, equivalent to full + -some. The meaning has evolved from an original positive connotation "abundant" to a neutral "plump" to a negative "overfed". In modern usage, it can take on any of these inflections. See usage note. The negative sense "offensive, gross; disgusting, sickening" developed secondarily after the 13th century and was influenced by Middle English foul (“foul”). In the 18th century, the word was sometimes even spelled foulsome.

Example Sentences

• "[T]he Weather exceeding hot, I entreated him to let me bathe in a River that was near. He conſented, and I immediately ſtripped myſelf ſtark naked, and went down ſoftly into the ſtream. It happened that a young Female Yahoo ſtanding behind a Bank, ſaw the whole proceeding, and enflamed by Deſire, as the Nag and I conjectured, came running with all ſpeed, and leaped into the Water within five Yards of the Place where I bathed. [...] She embraced me after a moſt fulſome manner; [...]"
• "You will hear the advanced enfans perdus, as the French call them, and so they are indeed, namely, children of the fall, singing unclean and fulsome ballads of sin and harlotrie."
• "And by hideous contrast, a redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering not thirty steps away, in fulsome laudation of "our glorious British liberties!""