sesquipedalianism ses-kwi-PEED-l-iz-uhm, adjective:
1. Given to using long words.
2. (Of a word) containing many syllables.
Quoting those who insist on engaging in sesquipedalianism (using “large words when smaller ones will do,”) Cavett romps and stomps over his subjects in a veritable malign-fest of the linguistically misguided.
-- Susie Berta, Susie's Year of Words - 2008 (Blog), April 14, 2008
It is very true that when the experiment of dictating is first tried, the luxury of the ease it gives is apt to be so great, that it tends to looseness and verbosity of style; for there is no better check on sesquipedalianism than the necessity of writing down one's sesquipedalian words for one's self.
-- Christian Examiner, Volume 72
More unreal even than the sesquipedalianism that returned to him — not as a matter for mockery but as a medium for expression — in his lesser works and in his later days, was his moral purpose.
-- Benedict Kiely, Poor scholar: a study of the works and days of William Carleton, 1794-1869
Sesquipedalianism appears in Horace's Ars Poetica, meaning "words a foot-and-a-half long," as an ironic criticism.
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