"Sesquipedalian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heard him quote, in a public address before the New York University, a whole page of Cicero without the slip of a single word! His passion for polysyllables was very amusing, and he loved to astonish his hearers by his "sesquipedalian" phraseology. A certain visionary crank once intruded into his study and bored him with a long dissertation. Dr. Cox's patience was exhausted, and pointing to the door, he said: "My friend, do you observe that aperture in this apartment? If you ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... is supposed occasionally to dictate decrees to the Convention, presides with a more avowed and certain sway over the realms of fashion; and the Turkish draperies that may float very gracefully on a form like hers, are imitated by rotund sesquipedal Fatimas, who make one regret even the tight lacings and unnatural diminishings of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... &c. adj.; lengthen, extend, elongate; stretch; prolong, produce, protract; let out, draw out, spin out|!; drawl. enfilade, look along, view in perspective. distend (expand) 194. Adj. long, longsome[obs3]; lengthy, wiredrawn[obs3], outstretched; lengthened &c. v.; sesquipedalian &c. (words) 577; interminable, no end of; macrocolous[obs3]. linear, lineal; longitudinal, oblong. as long as my arm, as long as today and tomorrow; unshortened &c. (shorten &c. 201)[obs3]. Adv. lengthwise, at length, longitudinally, endlong[obs3], along; tandem; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a proud and commiserating contempt of the dark ignorance by which, in despite of their own light, they were surrounded. Their conversation, like their own crambos, was dark and difficult to be understood; their words, truly sesquipedalian; their voice, loud and commanding in its tones; their deportment, grave and dictatorial, but completely indescribable, and certainly original to the last degree, in those instances where the ready, genuine humor of their country ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... delicious thing to find a man who could employ the lingo of the ultra-sophisticated sociologist, and use it in a demonstration of the most revolutionary propositions. The drollery of this was all the more enjoyable because Thyrsis could never be sure that the author himself intended it—whether his sesquipedalian irony might not be a pure product of nature, untouched by any ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair |
