Corporatespeak

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Vague, inflated business language and buzzwords used in corporate settings to sound professional while often saying little of substance
2. The specialized jargon and euphemistic phrasing favored by large companies in meetings, reports and official communications
3. Evasive, buzzword-heavy talk typical of corporate offices, often full of phrases that obscure meaning rather than clarify it

Etymology: "Corporatespeak" is formed from "corporate" and the suffix "-speak," which English uses to mark a distinctive jargon associated with a particular group or field. The model for the suffix is "newspeak," the invented language in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four," and the pattern has been reused for many other specialized vocabularies since. "Corporate" comes from the Latin "corporatus," the past participle of "corporare," meaning "to form into a body," itself from "corpus," "body." The adjective's sense of a formed, unified body is the root of the modern meaning, describing organizations that operate as legal entities. The compound describes the stock phrases, buzzwords and euphemisms used in large business organizations, such as talk of "synergy," "leveraging assets" or "rightsizing." The word thus names a register of speech rather than a single expression, and its meaning is usually pejorative, implying that the language is evasive or empty.

Synonyms: jargon, buzzwords, doublespeak

Antonyms: plain English, plain speaking