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, Book 3, London, page 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.

   • 1592 (first performance)​, Thomas Nash[e], A Pleasant Comedie, Called Summers Last Will and Testament‎, imprinted at London: By Simon Stafford, for Walter Burre, published 1600, OCLC 222298685:

     Vaine boaſters, lyers, make-ſhifts, they are all, / Men that remoued from their inkehorne termes, / Bring forth no action worthie of their bread.

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

   • 1972 July 16, “The perils and rewards of reviewing”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:

     The prose of these reviews is lucid, succinct, and graceful; Mr. Prescott avoids what he calls “inkhorn terms,” or involved syntax, or the ideas that might call for these.

• inkhorn word
• inkhornism

• inkhornish
• inkhornism
• inkhornize

• dormitive principle
• Graecism
• sesquipedalianism