Inkhornism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Pedantry; a preference for inkhorn terms. countable, uncountable
"But the virus of unrestrained inkhornism lurks today, ready to damage the prose of writers who think there are no words in the language sufficiently refined to communicate their ideas and who believe that long, impressive-sounding words must represent impressive ideas."
- 2 An inkhorn term. countable
"Mr. Will, whose inkhornisms remain a weekly treat, has had tough words for former White Housers who write tell-all books, so the younger George had better watch his tongue."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"But the virus of unrestrained inkhornism lurks today, ready to damage the prose of writers who think there are no words in the language sufficiently refined to communicate their ideas and who believe that long, impressive-sounding words must represent impressive ideas."
Etymology
From inkhorn + -ism.
More for "inkhornism"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.