Saxonism

English

Etymology

From Saxon +‎ -ism.

Noun

Saxonism (plural Saxonisms)

1. A word or phrase of the Saxon or Anglo-Saxon language.
   • 1774-1781, Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry:

     The language is not much more easy or intelligible than that of many of the Norman-Saxon poems quoted in the preceding section : it is full of Saxonisms, which indeed abound , more or less , in every writer before Gower and Chaucer .

   • 1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 111:

     The quest for Saxonisms is an unrealizable nationalistic dream.

References

• “Saxonism”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.