Questions tagged [neologisms]
A neologism is a newly coined word or phrase that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language.
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What is the status of logically pointless adjectives and adverbs, such as chairy or chairly? [closed]
Adjectives and adverbs can be formed by adding "y" or "ly" to e.g. a noun, such as:
heart -> hearty, heartily
However, sometimes these words are not in use, or make no logical ...
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When did the expression “hustle culture” emerge?
The expression “hustle culture” refers to workplace environments that place an intense focus on productivity, ambition, and success, with little regard for rest, self care, or any sense of work-life ...
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Speed Checked By Radar: Synhermeneia?
Is there a word to describe an ambiguous phrase whose alternate meanings all happen to be relevant and true in the context?
The example that fascinates me is the road sign "Speed Checked By Radar&...
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Is “to bottom line” actually gaining traction?
The following extract from grammarist.com suggests that the idiomatic expression “bottom line” is mainly used as a noun but it is increasingly also being used as a verb:
By the 1980s, the term the ...
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Prospective means future-looking, retrospective means past-looking. What means present-looking?
This is actually two questions. One: is there a word that means present-looking? And: if there isn't, what should the neologism be? Spective? Conspective?
Note that although this is a serious question,...
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What does the word "verifactive" mean?
In Introduction to Functional Grammar, in the section on conjunction, Halliday labels the conjuncts "actually", "in fact" and "as a matter of fact" as "verifactive&...
user468388
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What’s the English for “ecomostro”?
The Italian term “ecomostro” is often used to indicate:
an ugly and environmentally damaging building. (Collins)
Here is an example:
(Linkiesta.it)
Is there a term, a neologism for “ecomostro”. In ...
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Opposite of "Smart" electronic devices?
There are many things today that have the term "smart" attached to them. These are most often electronics devices or machines that have embedded computer hardware and software. Some of these ...
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Is there a term for insincere prefacing?
Is there a specific term for the practice of prefacing a statement with another statement that is in contrast (in spirit) to what is being said?
There is a related concept called apophasis, where you ...
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Is there a word for people who revel in freebies that isn't pejorative?
I was looking for a word for someone that is really into getting free things, that doesn't necessarily carry a negative connotation. I'd describe them as:
that person that shows up to random ...
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Does 'genocide' cover mass murder of a people by sex or gender? Is there a better word?
Genocide defined:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group,
...
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Can "coincide" be use transitively?
The New York Times today has an unusual use of "coincide":
NYT
Looking at common-cold coronaviruses, some researchers have predicted that SARS-CoV-2 will become a seasonal winter infection ...
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Word for someone who abstains from eating mammal-derived foods (meat and milk)
Is there a single word that refers to someone who doesn't eat food derived from mammals? This person would eat fish and other seafood, poultry, eggs, but would not eat the meat of mammals, nor ...
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How is the singular noun "vote" used compared to the plural "votes"?
Being a big fan of fivethirtyeight.com, and political nerdishness in general, I have repeatedly run into a plural use of the singular nominal 'vote,' most often in the phrase 'percentage of vote.'
...
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Burritoise Vs Burrito?
I was explaining something using an analogy with burritos. If I apply the same burrito analogy to other examples, am I Burritoising those examples or Burritoing them?
By analogy, say you were banned ...
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Where did the word red-tapism come from?
What is the origin of the word red-tapism?
And what does it actually mean?
Lexico says it first appeared in the mid-19th century in the
Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, a London paper. Searching ...
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"Not-Noun"s: Neologism or not?
From the title, you can tell that I don't actually know what this phenomenon is called, if it has a name at all, nor if it has already existed for a long time. My own searching has been unhelpful, for ...
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What is "musset"?
I came across the word "musset" in Gregory Maguire's Wicked--
Her green traveling gown with its inset panels of ochre musset suggested wealth, while the black shawl draping just so about ...
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What would the opposite of "orthopedic" be?
So, I'm wondering, what could the opposite of "orthopedic" be? More precisely, if a force is "orthopedic" in nature (so it would give a correct posture), what would a force that ...
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Is there a word for pleasing numbers?
Similar to how euphonic describes words that sound pleasing, is there a word for numbers that feel pleasing and comfortable? Like 12:34, $20, or 7.17? I ask because it seems to be an important concept ...
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What’s the English for “democrature”, a dictatorship pretending to be a democracy through fraudulent elections?
The French term democrature (from
democratie + dictature) is defined as:
Dictature déguisée en démocratie par l’organisation d’élections non libres, contrôlées et/ou frauduleuses. Par extension, tout ...
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Different name for the strip of holey paper from a spiral notebook
When students rip out papers from a spiral notebook, the edge has a row of little holes. Unlike when I was young, these pages have perforations running down the right side so that the strips can be ...
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Neolog / prefix for use with bubble+ology [closed]
I want to coin a word that means the study of financial bubbles. After learning that Bubbleology is some kind of metropolitan tea beverage, my immediate hunch of "Bubbleology" lost a great ...
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Coining a gramatically right word for a newly devised method [duplicate]
I am writing a research paper in which a new method is devised.
In this method a mathematical function is rebuilt by combining some conical functions (apexes).
Is it grammatically right to name it The ...
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Word to describe a PDF file produced by converting from another format (for example, from HTML)
A month ago, I asked whether it would be correct to call an HTML page saved as PDF file a converted PDF file.
"Converted PDF file" - what does it really mean?
According to Greybeard, the ...
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What does "te-thrum" mean?
I'm reading Malcolm Lowry's letters and his first letter to Conrad Aiken finishes like this:
te-thrum te-thrum te-thrum te-thrum, Malcolm Lowry
Does anyone know what "te-thrum" mean in this ...
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Is there a term describing countries taking foreign citizens as hostage?
English is my second language, and I am wondering is there a term that describes when countries take foreign citizens or dual citizens as hostage or arrest them on conspiracy/espionage charges all to ...
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How far can one go in creating new words?
Apparently the word disturbingly exists, but undisturbingly doesn't. However, I felt it better served to convey my meaning and was sure that any reader would understand what I mean. I also put it ...
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A toned down term to replace "orthodoxy" in sociology of art
I think this community could help me a lot. In sociology of culture the term orthodoxy refers to ideas held by most and imposed by cultural institutions, so that the "doxa", or opinion, is ...
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Two 'x's in "anti-vaxxer"
I have always found myself impulsively and automatically spelling "anti-vaxxer" with two 'x's, and a Google search indicates that most other media sources did the same; however, I can't ...
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Why isn't "Verbing" always allowed?
Why are varnish (varnish the truth),gloss (glossed over her faults), and paint (paints him more innocent than the evidence suggests) used metaphorically, but not lacquer?
user403195
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Use of 'went' as a noun
I have come across its use as a proper noun in an 1895 deed:
"...all that one piece of pasture lying at Whatling Went."
So I wondered if there is any evidence for the the use of 'went' as ...
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Word or intuitive neologism for "(unhealthy) infatuation with gold"
The easy picks:
greed
avarice
They get the message across, but are too general. I want a word that narrows the meaning to only gold -- not just desire for wealth / material gain.
I tried a neologism:...
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Word for an all seeing society/government type
I'm looking for a word to mean a society or government type where everything is visible or known to everyone, similar to omniscient. For example, if everyone (including government) can see everything ...
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when and where is first occurence of word "zap"?
when and where is first occurence of word "zap" ?
Online Etymology dictionnary mentions comic strip Buck Rogers but without any precise date or quotation
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Practice of splitting a web article in many chunks
Some sites have the (execrable) custom of splitting a web article in many small chunks. Example: the article starting at
https://es.goodtimepost.com/niagara-falls/
is divided in 38 chunks. In each ...
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Can statues being pulled down in #BlackLivesMatter be called 'iconoclasm'?
During the worldwide protests of #BlackLivesMatter, a large number of statues commemorating colonial conquest in the modern era have been pulled down by protesters.
Is it appropriate to call them '...
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Looking for a descriptive word(s)) to describe digest/summation/pocket culture
I am looking for a generic word(s) to describe summary digest cultural of modern society. (or a Neologism)
A word(s) for culture that describes "Take what is useful, discard what is useless"
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Word for "of or to do with groups"
I appreciate this is somewhat arbitrary, but humour me! I am trying to come up with a term that describes the following...
I am working with "groups" of people. This is the informal definition, ...
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Word for shaking elbows (Covid-19 pandemic)
The recent epidemic has made people change a few habits. We no longer shake hands and a few of us touch each other elbows as an alternative practice.
Has this kind of salutation a proper name?
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What is "plurisecular"? Can't find this word's meaning, only translations
Here's a quote from Robert Hurley's translation of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality arguing for the historical importance of the anonymous author of My Secret Life:
...he was the most direct ...
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What is a term for crop/livestock, something raised for indirect value?
What is a term for crop/livestock, something raised for indirect value?
By indirect value I mean that you're getting (deriving, harvesting) a product from it. The raising of it is not itself the ...
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When and by whom was “coronnial” coined?
The Cambridge Dictionary blog posted on May 11th, 2020 a new word:
Coronnial - noun [C]
(UK /kəˈrəʊ.ni.əl/ US /kəˈroʊ.ni.əl/)
someone who was born around the time of the covid-19 pandemic
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Has a term emerged yet as the main one to refer to people who insist that COVID 19 is not real? [closed]
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a couple of acquaintances on Facebook telling us how we're all being fooled and that COVID-19 is not real, or is just an average flu, etc.
Are people already ...
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Which adjectives can be built from the word "atlas"? [closed]
We are interested in things that are like an atlas. What are the possible adjectives that can describe such things.
Four choices that came to mind are:
1) atlantic
2) atlantian
2) atlassian
3) ...
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The installer of an installer
This is probably one of many questions brought forward by this computing age; but what can I call a person who installs an installer?
I was thinking installee, which isn't a word given we already had ...
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A single word for the most important person in one's life
The concept of a "Lebensmensch" plays a dominant role in Thomas Bernhard's works. At Wikipedia one reads that
»Lebensmensch [is] a predominantly Austrian term [...] which refers to
the most ...
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What would you call a phobia of endlessly looping GIFs?
When you share a GIF on WhatsApp, it runs in a loop three times and then stops.
When you share a GIF on Facebook Messenger, however, it runs in an endless loop.
The thought of a GIF running ...
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Is "hardstuck" a neologism? What is its etymology?
I have used the word hardstuck to mean "permanently unable to move". It is a more intense version of stuck, since stuck can sometimes mean "temporarily unable to move" or "unable to move without ...
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Is referring to 'Frankenstein's monster' as 'Frankenstein' a neologism?
I just read this question and one of the answers started with
"Ordinarily, Frankenstein is a noun referring to a fictional monster"
As every nitpicker knows, Frankenstein is the doctor who created ...
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