logolatry /lə-GAW-lə-tree/. noun. An unhealthy veneration or worship of words. Coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From Greek logo- (speech, words) + -latry (worship of).
“What is the whole system from Philo to Plotinus, and thence to Proclus inclusively, but one fanciful process of hypostasizing logical conceptions and generic terms? In Proclus it is Logolatry run mad.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
“What Mark scroggins calls the poet’s ‘logolatry’ includes not just an entrancing litany of polysyllabic and arcane words but also a fondness for utterances of humbler origin.” (Harryette Mullen)
But as “Protestant ‘logolatry’ supplant[ed] the idolatry of which the reformers accuse Catholicism,” Shakespeare’s stupid puritans point to what was potentially dangerous about the cult of the ear. (Robert Hornback)
“I address the ways in which Erasmus flirts with logolatry, a veneration of the word that would help shape Reformation and Counter-Reformation thought.” (James Kearney)
“I waste a lot of time in logolatry. I am a verbalist, Cynthia—a tinkling symbolist. I am the founder and leader of the new school of literature—The Emblemists. I wear a wide black hat, a dirty shirt, boots with spurs, and shave once a month.” (Conrad Aiken)
Elsewhere: Wordnik.