twenty-five cent word

Noun

twenty-five cent word (plural twenty-five cent words)

1. (Canada, US, idiomatic) An uncommon word, often used in place of a more common one with the intent to appear sophisticated.
   • 1950, Jack Kerouac, The Town and the City, New York: Harcourt, 1983, Chapter 11, p. 331,

     The old man chuckled. “Well, you can bandy twenty-five cent words all you want, but— Say! we’ve never had a talk like this before, have we? […] ”

   • 1988, Howard Rosenthal, Not With My Life I Don’t: Preventing Your Suicide and That of Others, Muncie, Indiana: Accelerated Development, Inc., Chapter 4, p. 18,

     Some of the most incredible cases I have ever worked with involve the act of pulling strands of hair from one’s own head. Psychiatrists and psychologists have a twenty-five cent word for this behavior. They call it Trichotillomania.

   • 2015, Barbara Baig, Spellbinding Sentences, Blue Ash, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, Section 2, Chapter 4, p. 37,

     Remember that while the English language has lots of “twenty-five cent” words like perturb or effrontery, statuesque or decorous, it also has lots of essential short, sturdy words like of or but, say or stop or glow.