buzzword

plural buzzwords · alternative buzz word · alternative buzz-word

1. derogatorysometimesA word drawn from, or imitative of, technical jargon, used more to impress others than to convey meaning.

   Their salespeople know all the right buzzwords, but they can't really help you solve your problems.

   3 more examples

   Ideology is a [George Cabot] Lodge buzzword, as they say in business schools, the first word that sends many executives and students who would emulate them, into fury.

   1972 May 14, Marylyn Bender, “Harvard's Brahmin Radical”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 05 Oct 2022

   Have you tried doing it yourself? It's not easy. I was hoping to illustrate this article with some self-created buzzwords for leftwingers to use. The first one I came up with was "molehill mountaineer", a pejorative term to describe the sort of perpetually furious rightwing weevil who spends their life calculatedly conflating issues such as the "Ground Zero mosque" into gigantic media crapgasms. […] Because in today's 2,000mph technological freefall, he who coins the catchiest buzzword generally wins the debate by default.

   2010 August 30, Charlie Brooker, “Buzzwords for blowhards”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 30 May 2023

   There is great confusion and debate about what a blockchain even is—some people argue it’s become a meaningless buzzword—but the standard definition describes a shared, decentralized, cryptographically secure, immutable digital ledger.

   2018 June 19, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “Inside the Crypto World's Biggest Scandal”, in WIRED, →ISSN, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2018

2. A little-known word used to sound scholarly or professional, or to flaunt one's vocabulary.

   Why not just say "compare" instead of "juxtapose"? No one understands you when you use these buzzwords.