Word.ws English Dictionary

sesquipedalism

sesquipedalism is the alternative form of sesquipedalianism.

Meaning of sesquipedalianism

Noun

sesquipedalianism (countable and uncountable, plural sesquipedalianisms)

  1. (uncountable) The practice of using long, sometimes obscure, words in speech or writing.
    • His voice here is a marvelous juxtaposition of cool elegance, unaffected hipness, unabashed sesquipedalianism ("the rich bouquet of exuded sebaceousness") and swell conversational slang (...)1995, Michael Cart, From Romance to Realism, →ISBN, page 257
  2. (countable) A very long word.

Origin of sesquipedalism

From sesquipedal + -ism.

Questions about sesquipedalism

What is sesquipedalism the alternative form of?
Sesquipedalism is the alternative form of sesquipedalianism.

Words near sesquipedalism in the dictionary

  1. sesquipedalianism
  2. sesquipedalianisms
  3. sesquipedalianist
  4. sesquipedalianists
  5. sesquipedalians
  6. sesquipedalism
  7. sesquipedalities
  8. sesquipedality
  9. sesquipedalophobia
  10. sesquipedals
  11. sesquiplane

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sesquipedalism (page history and authors); sesquipedalianism (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: “sesquipedalism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sesquipedalism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.