aureation means the enhancement of the seriousness of a topic by the use of elaborate circumlocutions or polysyllabic or Latinate words for it. It carries an Arena rating of 1621, earned across 47 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, aureation ranks #192 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #364 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,527 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #1,676 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words.
Why “aureation” is a great word
AUREATION — [Noun] The stylistic practice of elevating a topic's perceived gravity through the deliberate use of ornate circumlocutions and polysyllabic, often Latinate, vocabulary. From aureate (from Latin aureatus, "decorated with gold") + the noun-forming suffix -ion. Unlike "grandiloquence" (which denotes broadly pompous, often hollow eloquence) or "plainness" (which denotes simple, unadorned speech), aureation is a conscious alchemy, the application of linguistic gilt. It is the vellum manuscript where "king" becomes "sceptered sovereign," the treatise transmuting "anger" into "coruscating indignation," or the speech promising a road as "a conduit of infrastructural perpetuity"—a faith that if language is heavy and bright enough, the thought beneath it will seem to be made of gold.
Etymology
From aureate + -ion, from Latin aureatus (“decorated with gold”).
noun
- The enhancement of the seriousness of a topic by the use of elaborate circumlocutions or polysyllabic or Latinate words for it.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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