officialese

American  

[uh-fish-uh-leez, -lees] / əˌfɪʃ əˈliz, -ˈlis /

noun

1. a style of language used in some official statements, often criticized for its use of polysyllabic jargon and obscure, pretentiously wordy phrasing.

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officialese British  

/ əˌfɪʃəˈliːz /

noun

1. language characteristic of official documents, esp when verbose or pedantic

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Etymology

Origin of officialese

First recorded in 1880–85; official + -ese

Example Sentences

There’s even a Plain English Campaign that does its nut, year-round and vocationally, about examples of baffling officialese, pompous lawyer-speak and soul-shrivelling business jargon.

From The Guardian • Oct. 7, 2017

In officialese the lifts are referred to as Personenumlaufaufzüge – people circulation lifts – while a popular bureaucrats’ nickname for them is Beamtenbagger or “civil servant excavator”.

From The Guardian • Aug. 14, 2015

He then turns to the idea of classic style “as an antidote for academese, bureaucratese, corporatese, legalese, officialese, and other kinds of stuffy prose.”

From Washington Post

What brought the acronym to full glory was World War II, when G.I.s peppered their language with officialese.

From Time Magazine Archive

But in his report to Congress on July 4, 1861, Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, only made some wholly non-committal observations in ponderous "officialese."

From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by Wood, William Charles Henry