Word Of The Day

sesquipedalian \ses-kwuh-puh-DAYL-yuhn\, adjective:

1. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
2. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.

noun:
A long word.

As a sesquipedalian stylist, he can throw a word like 'eponymous" into a sentence without missing a beat.
--Campbell, Patty, "The sand in the oyster," The Horn Book Magazine, May 15, 1996

Plus he has a weakness for what we can mischievously call sesquipedalian excess: Look out for such terms as "epiphenomenal," "diegetic" and "proprioceptive."
--Jabari Asim, "Reel Pioneer," Washington Post, November
19, 2000

They walk and speak with disdain for common folk, and never miss a chance to belittle the crowd in sesquipedalian put-downs or to declare that their raucous and uncouth behavior calls for nothing less than a letter to the Times, to inform proper Englishmen of the deplorable state of manners in the Colonies.
--William C. Martin, "Friday Night in the Coliseum," The Atlantic, March 1972

... her eccentric family's addiction to sesquipedalians (that big word for "big words"), and her furtive passion for flossy mail-order-catalog prose.
--David Browne, "Books/The Week," Entertainment Weekly, October 23, 1998


Sesquipedalian comes from Latin sesquipedalis, "a foot and a half long, hence inordinately long," from sesqui, "one half more, half as much again" + pes, ped-, "a foot."