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:
“The word “obligation” is very seldom in my thoughts, and consequently very seldom is it uttered by my tongue. For I am satisfied that whoever hath the word “obligation” continually in his mouth hath the love of tyranny steadily fixed in his heart.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)