academese

[ ak-uh-duh-meez, -mees, uh-kad-uh- ]

noun

1. pedantic, pretentious, and often confusing academic jargon:

   a presumably scholarly article written in incomprehensible academese.

Word History and Origins

Origin of academese¹

academ(ic) + -ese

Example Sentences

He took down from his shelf a bound copy of his PhD dissertation from Stanford, where he studied dramatic literature, and shared that he wanted to translate the manuscript from “academese into English.”

From Los Angeles Times

“The conflict we engendered was performative class conflict,” Koenig says in perfect academese.

From The Guardian

There are the peddlers of “civil disagreement” — I like to think of them as trolls in tweed blazers, who cloak themselves in academese and are “just trying to have a measured conversation.”

From Salon

To translate from academese: An "egalitarian-internationalist platform" means the kind of political platform that articulates a shared, global struggle among all of the poor and working-class people around the world — in other words, a class-conscience platform that recognizes that rich people are not on the same side as the rest of us, and have different interests and are eager to exploit us.

From Salon

The second act, which shifts between a 2003 symposium, steeped in academese, and a 1973 talk show, steeped in gin, is more like a screwball tragedy.

From New York Times