Johnsonese
English edit
Etymology edit
Proper noun edit
Johnsonese
- The literary style of Dr. Samuel Johnson; an inflated, stilted, or pompous style, affecting classical words.
- Hypernym: inkhornism
- 1843, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Madame D'Arblay”, in Edinburgh Review:
- It is a sort of broken Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the same relation to the language of Rasselas which the gibberish of the negroes of Jamaica bears to the English of the House of Lords
References edit
“Johnsonese”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.