Definition of "sesquipedalian"

“The fine old fellow,” as a Northern contemporary of ours patronizingly calls him, certainly rolled out his sesquipedalians with a majesty previously unknown, and gave a fine organ-like swell to his full-blow periods;

1830, On the Art of Rising in Prose The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, part 2, v. 29, Henry Colburn and Co., page: 162

Fleet-streetese, the so-called English written to sell by the Fleet-streeter (q.v.), or baser sort of journalist: a mixture of sesquipedalians and slang, of phrases worn threadbare and phrases sprung from the kennel;

1927, John S. Farmer, William Ernest Henley, A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English: Abridged from the Seven-volume Work, Entitled "Slang and Its Analogues", Taylor & Francis, page: 164

‘Sometimes we converse in ballad-rhymes, sometimes in Johnsonian sesquipedalians; at tea we condescend to riddles and charades.’

1952, Hannah More, Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, page: 220

Word-watchers, verbivores, and sesquipedalians love a challenge.

2008, Richard Dawkins, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, Oxford University Press, page: 106

‘What sort of writer is the English professor looking for?’ / ‘He wants a sesquipedalian, of course.’

2009, Sally Adams, Wynford Hicks, Interviewing for Journalists, Taylor & Francis, page: 97

Don’t be a sesquipedalian! / Yes, you guessed right. A sesquipedalian is a person who enjoys long words.

2012, Jonathan Herring, How to Argue: Powerfully, Persuasively, Positively, FT Press, chapter 8, page: ?

He would use the simplest, plainest language, he said to himself over and over again; but it is not always easy to use simple, plain language,—by no means so easy as to mount on stilts, and to march along with sesquipedalian words, with pathos, spasms, and notes of interjection.

1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage

Happy word hunting! You might bag a sesquipedalian trophy! (Look it up in the dictionary).

1988 March, “What Dictionary (General or Specialized) Do You Find Useful or Interesting for Students?”, in The English Journal, page 68

[I]ts main character, Henry (Mr. [Ewan] McGregor), is a successful, intellectual dramatist who seems quite capable of churning out fizzy, challenging works about brilliant but ambivalent revolutionaries, philosophers, etc. […] But this cleverer-than-thou creature gets his comeuppance in "The Real Thing," showing that a very human heart – just like those possessed by the less sesquipedalian – beats beneath his fancy words.

2014 October 30, Ben Brantley, “When the head leads the heart: 'The Real Thing,' With Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal, opens on Broadway ”, in The New York Times‎