[f. WORD sb. + MONGER.] One who deals in words, esp. in strange or pedantic words, or in empty words without sense or substance. contemptuous.
1590. Tarlton’s News Purgat., Ep. Ded. A 2 b. The wordmongers of malice, that like the Vipers grew odious to their own kinde.
1628. Shirley, Witty Fair One, V. iv. A pedantical, lousy wordmonger.
1749. Lavington, Enthus. Meth. & Papists (1820), 331. God hath cautioned me against these word-mongers.
1855. Motley, Dutch Rep., VI. iii. (1866), 813. The word-mongers who could clothe one shivering thought in a hundred thousand garments.
1884. Tennyson, Becket, II. ii. Diagonalise! thou art a word-monger.
So Wordmongering, -mongery.
1879. H. N. Hudson, Hamlet, Pref. p. xiv. Too much time … spent in mere word-mongering and lingual dissection.
1903. Times Lit. Suppl., 20 March, 87/3. Word-mongery has been overdone here and there.
