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:
“What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other strings called political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they’ll murder their neighbours for using a word they don’t happen to like. A word that probably doesn’t mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)