An inkhorn term is a loanword or a word coined from existing roots, which is deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious.
Etymology
An inkhorn is an inkwell made of horn. It was an important item for many scholars, which soon became symbolic of writers in general. Later, it became a byword for fussy or pedantic writers. The phrase "inkhorn term" is found as early as 1553.
Adoption
Controversy over inkhorn terms was rife from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century, during the transition from Middle English to Modern English, when English competed with Latin as the main language of science and learning in England, having already displaced French. Many words, often self-consciously borrowed from classical literature, were deemed useless by critics who argued that the understanding of these redundant borrowings depends on knowledge of classical languages. Some borrowings filled a technical or scientific semantic gap, but others coexisted with Germanic words, often overtaking them. Writers such as Thomas Elyot and George Pettie were enthusiastic borrowers whereas Thomas Wilson and John Cheke opposed borrowing. Cheke wrote: Many of these so-called inkhorn terms, such as dismiss, celebrate, encyclopedia, commit, capacity and ingenious, stayed in the language. Many other neologisms faded soon after they were first used; for example, expede is now obsolete, although the synonym expedite and the similar word impede survive. Faced with the influx of loanwords, some writers, as well known as Charles Dickens tried to either resurrect older English words or to coin brand new words from Germanic roots.
Legacy
Few of these words, coined in opposition to inkhorn terms remained in common usage, and the writers who disdained the use of Latinate words often could not avoid using other loanwords. Although the inkhorn controversy was over by the end of the 17th century, many writers sought to return to what they saw as the purer roots of the language. William Barnes coined words, such as starlore for astronomy and speechcraft for grammar, but they were not widely accepted. George Orwell famously analysed and criticised the socio-political impact of the usage of such words:
