Word.ws English Dictionary

lexiphanicism

lexiphanicism noun: the use of pretentious words or language.

Noun

lexiphanicism (countable and uncountable, plural lexiphanicisms)

  1. The use of pretentious words or language.
    • The student's lexiphanicism is an obvious attempt to appear smart but really only serves to make him look pompous.
    • Last week, I overheard one editor at the Crimson accuse another of being a lexiphane. The accused, quick to his wit, replied that to indict someone for lexiphanicism is the surest way to confirm one’s hypocrisy.2014 April 11, Noah B. Pisner, “Big words and their use on campus”, in Harvard Magazine, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Magazine Inc., →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Sep 2023

Forms of lexiphanicism

plurallexiphanicisms

Origin of lexiphanicism

From lexiphanic + -ism, from Lexiphanes (“a character in the works of Lucian”) + -ic.

Questions about lexiphanicism

What does lexiphanicism mean?
Lexiphanicism means the use of pretentious words or language.
What part of speech is lexiphanicism?
Lexiphanicism is a noun.
What is the plural of lexiphanicism?
The plural of lexiphanicism is lexiphanicisms.

Words near lexiphanicism in the dictionary

  1. lexiphane
  2. lexiphanes
  3. lexiphanic
  4. lexiphanical
  5. lexiphanically
  6. lexiphanicism
  7. lexiphanicisms
  8. lexiphanics
  9. lexiphone
  10. lexiphones
  11. lexis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lexiphanicism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “lexiphanicism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lexiphanicism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.