inkhorn term

From inkhorn +‎ term.

inkhorn term (plural inkhorn terms)

1. An obscure, affectedly or ostentatiously learned or erudite borrowing from another language, especially from Latin or Greek.
   • 1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique, London, Book 3, p. 86b,

     I knowe them that thynke Rhetorique, to stande wholy vpon darke woordes, and he that can catche an ynke horne terme by the taile, hym thei compt to bee a fine Englishe man, and a good Rhetorician.

   • 1958, Harold Whitehall, Introduction to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, in Leonard F. Dean and Kenneth G. Wilson (editors), Essays on Language and Usage, New York: Oxford University Press, Second edition, 1963, p. 4,

     Constant reading of Greek and Latin bred a race of Holofernes pedants who preferred the Latin or Greek term to the English term. Their principle in writing was to use Latino-Greek polysyllabics in a Latino-English syntax. Their strange vocabulary—studded with what some critics call “inkhorn” terms—eventually affected English so powerfully that no non-Latinate Englishman could ever hope to read many works in his own language unless he was provided with explanations of elements unfamiliar to him.

• inkhorn word

• inkhornish
• inkhornism
• inkhornize

• dormitive principle
• Graecism
• sesquipedalianism