inkhorn term

plural inkhorn terms

1. A borrowing from another language thought to be pretentious or unneeded, especially from Latin or Greek.

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

   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

   3 more examples

   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.

   1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique, Book 3, London, page 86b

   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.

   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, 2nd edition, New York: Oxford University Press, published 1963, page 4

   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.

   1972 July 16, “The perils and rewards of reviewing”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: inkhorn word, inkhornism