sesquipedalian

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The Word of the Day for March 22 is:

sesquipedalian   \ses-kwuh-puh-DAIL-yun\   adjective
    1 : having many syllables : long 
   *2 : using long words 

Example sentence: 
     While the writer's sesquipedalian style can be irksome at 
times, his novels usually have interesting plots and good 
character development.

Did you know? 
     Horace, the Roman poet known for his satire, was merely 
being gently ironic when he cautioned young poets against 
using "sesquipedalia verba" -- "words a foot and a half long" -- 
in his book _Ars poetica_, a collection of maxims about writing. 
But in the 17th century, English literary critics decided the 
word "sesquipedalian" could be very useful for lambasting 
writers using unnecessarily long words. Robert Southey used it 
to make two jibes at once when he wrote "the verses of [16th-
century English poet] Stephen Hawes are as full of barbarous 
sesquipedalian Latinisms, as the prose of [the 18th-century 
periodical] the _Rambler_." The Latin prefix "sesqui-" is used 
in modern English to mean "one and a half times," as 
in "sesquicentennial" (a 150th anniversary). 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.