wordage

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Words collectively, considered in a mass sense.

   “Near-synonym: language”

2. (countable, uncountable)The excessive use of words.

   “But the plates are good, and, in reality, sufficient without all the wordage.”

   “Here, I think, we must class the portmanteau-wordage of James Joyce, in which the use of verbal and syllabic association is carried so far that its power of unconscious persuasion is lost and the reader’s response is diverted by a conscious ecstasy of enigma-hunting, like a pig rooting for truffles.”

3. (countable, uncountable)The number of words used in a text: synonym of word count.

   “The official transcript totaled 2,045,000 words—more than twice the wordage of the Bible.”

   “A work of elucidation couched in a lazily dense style; a biography seemingly concerned with externals but in fact spun from inside the biographer like a spider’s thread; a critical study which exceeds in wordage all the major works of its subject put together…”

4. (countable, uncountable)The choice of words used: word choice.

   “Near-synonyms: phrasing; terminology; phraseology”

   “"With the wordage in the contract, we think we have a good case."”