Johnsonese

American  

[jon-suh-neez, -nees] / ˌdʒɒn səˈniz, -ˈnis /

noun

1. a literary style characterized by rhetorically balanced, often pompous phraseology and an excessively Latinate vocabulary: so called from the style of writing practiced by Samuel Johnson.

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Etymology

Origin of Johnsonese

First recorded in 1835–45; (Samuel) Johnson + -ese

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Johnsonese

Then the General's pent-up feelings overflowed in a flood of Johnsonese.

From Time Magazine Archive

Only when he came to answering attacks on NRA price control features and monopolistic tendencies did the General burst into genuine Johnsonese.

From Time Magazine Archive

Curbing his reckless Johnsonese, he did not say that all his opponents were chiselers, did not claim that NRA was responsible for all recovery to date.

From Time Magazine Archive

For this reason he constantly denounced Johnsonese with its polysyllabic Latin words which reduced language to abstract generalization.

From Hazlitt on English Literature An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by Jacob Zeitlin

The literary style of Mary Wollstonecraft's book is Johnsonese, but its thought forms the base of all that has come after.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 02 Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women by Elbert Hubbard

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