nonce word
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From for the nonce and word. Coined by James Murray, the influential first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Noun
[edit]nonce word (plural nonce words)
- (lexicography) A word invented for the occasion; especially to create alliteration or a rhyme
- 1974, Dr. Seuss, There's a Wocket in My Pocket!, Random House:
- Sometimes
I feel quite CERTAIN
there's a JERTAIN
in my CURTAIN
- 1889-1891, William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, et al., The Century Dictionary : an encyclopedic lexicon of the English language, The Century House, page 411:
- nonce-word (nons'wèrd) n. A word coined and used only for the nonce, for the particular occasion.
Synonyms
[edit]Hypernyms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]word invented for the occasion
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also
[edit]- hapax legomenon (one attestation), dis legomenon (two attestations), tris legomenon (three attestations)
- Category:English nonce terms
- Category:Nonce terms by language