From earlier prosa, a borrowing (first attested in the early 17th century) from Latin prōsa (“straightforward”) from the term prōsa ōrātio (“a straightforward speech- i.e. without the ornaments of verse”). Previously borrowed in Middle Dutch as prose (from Old French prose), a form which lived on in Modern Dutch as proos, prose, prooze. These forms however have been entirely displaced by proza.