Dictionary

sequacious en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /sɪˈkweɪʃəs/

Etymology

Derived from Latin sequāx (“a follower”), from sequī (“to follow”), + -acious (adjective-forming suffix).

Meanings

1. (obsolete, of objects) Likely to follow or yield to physical pressure; easily shaped or molded.
   • Now extract From the sequacious earth the pole. 1752, Christopher Smart, Hop Garden, page 67:
   • In the greater bodies the forge was easy, the matter being ductile and sequacious and obedient to the stroke of the artificer, and apt to be drawn, formed, and moulded. 1755 April, Samuel Johnson translating Bacon in A Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. "Forge"
   • Of all Fire there is none so ductile, so sequacious and obsequious as this of Wrath. 1640, Edward Reynolds, A Treatise on the Passions and Faculties of the Soule of Man, page 321:
2. (of people) Likely to follow, conform, or yield to others, especially showing unthinking adherence to others' ideas; easily led.
   • 1687, Dryden, first ode for St. Cecilia's Day Orpheus could lead the savage race; And trees uprooted left their place; Sequacious of the lyre...
   • The scheme of pantheistic omniscience, so prevalent among the sequacious thinkers of the day,... would have found little favour with the religious and philosophic nescience of St Austin. 1853, William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform, 2nd ed., p. 787
   • See how sequacious these poor creatures are to God their Centurion. 1650, John Trapp, A Clavis to the Bible, page 69:
   • By seeming to... admire their many new masters, and their rarer gifts; which make them worthy indeed of such soft and sequacious disciples. 1653, John Gauden, Hieraspistes, Preface:
   • After plowing through some names—including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, “the great Lou Dobbs” and the incomparably sequacious Steve Doocy... Trump caught himself... 2018 August 6, Erik Wemple, “What a Dumb Weekend”, in The Washington Post, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2018:
   • Here... he could wander out into the woods alone (after he had shaken off the attentions of the too sequacious Almeda). 1885, Charles Grant B. Allen, Babylon, volume I, page 228:
3. (of music notes or poetic feet) Following neatly or smoothly.
   • And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise. 1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Effusion, Canto xxxv:
   • That Hellenic speech... that rises and falls in Plato with the long sequacious music of an Æolian lute. 1864, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster, page 243:
4. (of thought) Following logically or in an unvarying and orderly procession, tending in a single intellectual direction.
   • Milton was not an extensive or discursive thinker, as Shakespeare was; for the motions of his mind were slow, solemn, and sequacious, like those of the planets. 1835 August, Thomas De Quincey, “Sketches of Life & Manners”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, page 546:

Forms

Antonyms

rambling (antonym(s) of “following logically”) · discursive (antonym(s) of “following logically”) · extensive (antonym(s) of “following logically”)

Deriveds

nonsequacious · sequacity · sequaciously · sequaciousness · unsequacious

Synonyms

following (easily led) · flowing (following smoothly) · obedient (easily led) · ductile (easily shaped) · attendant (easily led) · tractable (easily shaped) · tractable (easily led) · malleable (easily shaped) · pliant (easily shaped) · subservient (easily led) · unoriginal (easily led) · servile (easily led) · credulous (easily led)