The worst word in the world

Strong title, I know, but this word deserves it.

It may be an occupational thing, but this word manages to be insulting, misdescriptive, and misused by most people who employ it, all at the same time.

The word in question is "verbiage". If you mean to be dismissive or disparaging of somebody's prose style, by all means use it. It's pejorative, and that's what it's for. But for heaven's sake, don't use "verbiage" as an equivalent to "language" or "words". I even take issue with Merriam-Webster's definition to an extent - the first definition is fine, but contrary to the second definition "verbiage" shouldn't be just a synonym for "diction", as the etymology makes clear. It's not just expression, it's "chattering" or "trilling" pointlessly or confusingly.

As usual, Bryan Garner's book (the only reference book I use regularly) gets this right. The M-W second definition apparently also shows up in the Shorter OED but Garner calls it an "unneeded sense" (page 676 for those of you who want to look stuff like this up). So if you mean to criticize writing, or speech, that is prolix or redundant, use the word in good health. (Don't say "verbage", though. Geez.)

On the other hand, if you mean to dismiss something in writing because you don't think it's important, or you can't be bothered to read it, or you don't understand it and think it's irrelevant whether or not you do, then say those things and leave this word alone. In particular, if you want to apply it to some or all of a legal document, don't! If it's poorly written, opaque, redundant or jargon-filled, say so - you've got an excellent chance of being right. But dismissing large blocks of text because you've decided only lawyers would care about them just means the lawyers continue to win. Mwah hah hah hah!