Definition
Prolixity is the unnecessary and superfluous statement of facts in a pleading or in evidence. It refers to the inclusion of matter beyond what is legally relevant or required — padding, repetition, or over-elaboration that burdens the record without adding legal substance. In pleading, prolixity is a formal defect: matter found to be prolix may be struck or rejected as impertinent.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Long-windedness, tiresome length, an excess of words.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The quality or state of being prolix; great length; minute detail; as, prolixity in discourses and writings.
The common meaning captures the rhetorical nuisance — too many words. The legal meaning is narrower and carries procedural consequence. In law, prolixity is not merely verbose writing but the pleading of facts that are legally unnecessary, making the surplusage subject to formal rejection. A document can be brief and still prolix in the legal sense if it asserts irrelevant facts; a document can be lengthy without being prolix if every fact stated is material.
Why It Matters in Research
Prolixity is a term of pleading practice, and researchers will most often encounter it in older equity and common law sources. Its procedural significance has faded in modern practice — contemporary court rules governing pleadings (such as the requirement for a "short and plain statement" under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) have absorbed the function that the prolixity doctrine once served, but without using the term. Researchers searching modern materials for this doctrine by name will miss it almost entirely.
In historical sources, prolixity appears as both a pleading objection and a ground for striking evidence. The distinction matters: prolixity in a bill in equity was traditionally handled differently than prolixity in a pleading at common law, and equity courts were particularly active in policing prolix bills. Researchers working in chancery records or equity proceedings should expect the term to carry meaningful procedural weight.
The reference to "7 Price, 278" across all three historical dictionaries is a citation to English exchequer reports and reflects the English common law pedigree of the doctrine. Researchers should not assume this authority translates directly to American jurisdictions without verifying local reception.
Cross-research alert: prolixity connects closely to the doctrines of impertinence and scandal in pleading — terms that appear in the same historical sources and address related but distinct objections to pleading content. A researcher tracking prolixity objections in historical records should follow those companion terms as well.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier's are in complete agreement, reproducing nearly identical single-sentence definitions. This uniformity reflects the narrow, settled character of the doctrine in 19th-century practice: prolixity was a recognized, if modestly treated, pleading defect, not a contested or evolving concept.
None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the procedural mechanics — what motion or objection triggered review, how courts distinguished prolix matter from permissible elaboration, or how the doctrine operated differently in equity versus law. The silence is itself informative: prolixity was treated as self-evident in practice, with the courts expected to recognize it on sight. Modern researchers will need to consult treatises on pleading (such as Chitty on Pleading or Story's Equity Pleading) to recover the procedural detail the dictionaries omit.
Bouvier's entry briefly notes the related term PROLOCUTOR in the same paragraph, a quirk of alphabetical proximity rather than substantive connection. Researchers should not read any doctrinal relationship between the two terms.