Nonce Word

A nonce word is a word used only "for the nonce"—on a particular occasion that is not expected to recur. Quark, for example, was formerly a nonce word in English, appearing only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Murray Gell-Mann then adopted it to name a new class of subatomic particle. The use of the term nonce word in this way was apparently the work of James Murray, the influential editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Compare "hapax legomenon". An example of a nonce word in the works of Shakespeare is "honorificabilitudinitatibus".

Read more about Nonce Word:  Creation and Use, Use in Child Development Studies, Other Examples

Famous quotes containing the word word:

    Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is “All striving is vain,” will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him.
    William James (1842–1910)