1641 J. Milton Reason Church-govt. 37 Prosing or versing, but chiefly this latter.

1797 G. Dyer Poet's Fate line 2 There are, who think heaven ne'er designed that man should warble rhymes, or midnight prosings plan.

1801 T. Moore Morality 2 Dozing O'er books of rhyme and books of prosing.

1840 T. Hood Up Rhine 6 Should I ever get beyond prosing, all verses belong to her.

1963 W. Matthews Later Medieval Eng. Prose 287 It is from the prosings of their work [sc. the northern French poets]..that Malory derives the matter..of his great cycle.

1995 YSB (Nexis) 31 May 26 The stately prosing of Pulitzer Prize-winner James Alan McPherson.

1762 S. Foote Orators i. i. 28 Pshaw! there's enough of this dull prosing; come give us a little of something that's funny.

1775 W. Mason Mem. in T. Gray Poems 139 But what shall we say..when a writer whom Mr. Gray so justly esteemed as M. Marivaux is now held in such contempt, that Marivauder is a fashionable phrase amongst them [sc. the French], and signifies neither more nor less, than our own fashionable phrase of prosing?

1816 W. Scott Antiquary II. iv. 91 The unceasing prosing of his worthy companion.

1874 L. Stephen Hours in Libr. 1st Ser. 70 His moral prosings savour of the endless gossip over a dish of chocolate.

1977 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 Dec. 1498/5 The prosing of that coruscating bore Dr Emily Brightman, a notator and questor of the first water.

1999 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 19 Sept. vii. 35/1 His touch is death. He destroys the public for historical work by convincing it that history is synonymous with heavy, stolid prosing.

1743 R. Hurd Let. 5 Feb. in Early Lett. Bp. R. Hurd (1995) 97 This Gentelman, my dear, adds he with his prosing face, has a good taste.

1775 F. Burney Let. 24 Apr. in Early Jrnls. & Lett. (1990) II. 112 Remember how prosing, affected, and very fine he is.

1809 G. Ellis in S. Smiles Publisher & Friends (1891) I. vii. 159 A dull prosing piece of orthodoxy may have its admirers.

1814 J. Austen Mansfield Park I. viii. 156 Mrs. Rushworth, a well-meaning, civil, prosing, pompous woman, who thought nothing of consequence, but as it related to her own and her son's concerns. View more context for this quotation

1834 T. Medwin Angler in Wales I. Pref. p. ix But lest I should chance to be considered here one of the tribe of that fiddle-fadling, dull old prosing pedant.

1865 G. Grote Plato I. 125 Prosing beggars, in mean attire and dirt.

1987 A. Theroux Adultery 127 All the prosing consultations I had with myself only repulsed me.

1999 Guardian (Nexis) 19 June 10 A prosing old ‘poet’ named Gerald and his younger and stagily provocative..wife.

1822 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 11 735 You will not need to hear us prosingly speak of it.

1857 C. Dickens Little Dorrit i. xxxv. 307 ‘Papa,’ she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the tea-pot lid, ‘is sitting prosingly breaking his new-laid egg in the back parlor .’