Inkhorn words are archaic and highly formal expressions that are often used in legal or scholarly literature. They are words that were popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are considered to be strongly pretentious and overly academic. Some synonyms for inkhorn words include obfuscation, pedantry, jargon, sesquipedalianism, verbosity, and grandiloquence. These terms describe language that is convoluted, difficult to understand, and artificially constructed in order to appear more sophisticated than necessary. While these words may have been useful in the past, they are now considered to be outdated and unnecessary in modern communication.