Johnsonese

[ jon-suh-neez, -nees ]

noun

1. a literary style characterized by rhetorically balanced, often pompous phraseology and an excessively Latinate vocabulary: so called from the style of writing practiced by Samuel Johnson.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Johnsonese¹

First recorded in 1835–45; (Samuel) Johnson + -ese

Example Sentences

His contrast between the simple, nervous and picturesque expression of Johnson’s familiar letters and his Latinised pomposity when his sentences are done out of English into Johnsonese, cannot be forgotten; and his treatment of Bacon’s style is as sound and excellent as his treatment of Bacon’s philosophy is mistaken and false.

From Project Gutenberg

He occasionally quotes Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertains sincere admiration; but the ponderous and artificial fabric of Johnsonese did not please him like the language of Bacon, Fuller, Sir Thomas Browne, Coleridge, whom he cites frequently.

From Project Gutenberg

And if its author has certain qualities in common with his own “solemn elephant reposing in the shade,” they are, one feels, the product of a character that, like Donne’s elephant, could hardly be dislodged without the noise and cataclysm of a whole town undermined—whereas much of the style of to-day, which despises what it calls “Johnsonese,” could be blown away with a puff of wind.

From Project Gutenberg

Translated from the Johnsonese of the communiqu� writer, this meant that bearded, dust-caked, dust-choked infantrymen must poke into holes in quarries and caves in jungle-clad hills, shooting, burning or dynamiting the tenacious enemy either out into the open or into a ready-made tomb.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then the General's pent-up feelings overflowed in a flood of Johnsonese.

From Time Magazine Archive