A neologism (pron.: /niːˈɒlədʒɪzəm/; from Greek νέο- (néo-), meaning "new", and λόγος (lógos), meaning "speech, utterance") is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language.^[1] Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. Νεολεξία (Greek: a "new word", or the act of creating a new word) is a synonym for it. The term neologism is first attested in English in 1772, borrowed from French néologisme (1734).^[2]

A neologism may also be a new usage of an existing word,^[3][4] sometimes called a semantic extension.^[5][6] Cf. idiolect.

In psychiatry, the term neologism is used to describe the use of words that have meaning only to the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning.^[7] This tendency is considered normal in children, but in adults can be a symptom of psychopathy^[8] or a thought disorder (indicative of a psychotic mental illness, such as schizophrenia).^[9] People with autism also may create neologisms.^[10] Additionally, use of neologisms may be related to aphasia acquired after brain damage resulting from a stroke or head injury.^[11]

In theology, a neologism is a relatively new doctrine (for example, Transcendentalism). In this sense, a neologist is one who proposes either a new doctrine or a new interpretation of source material such as religious texts.^[12]

A stunt word is a neologism created to produce a special effect, or to attract attention.^[13][14] Examples are gloatation, titterosity, scrumtrulescent, malamanteau, and truthiness. Some stunt words are portmanteau words, and many are also based on malapropisms.^[15][16]

From literature [edit]

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Neologisms may come from popular literature in different forms. Sometimes, they are simply taken from a word used in the narrative of a book; a few representative examples are: "grok" (to achieve complete intuitive understanding), from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein; "McJob," from Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland; "cyberspace," from Neuromancer by William Gibson; "nymphet" from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

Other times the title of a book becomes the neologism, for instance, Catch-22 (from the title of Joseph Heller's novel). Alternatively, the author's name may become the neologism, although the term is sometimes based on only one work of that author. This includes such words as "Orwellian" (from George Orwell, referring to his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four) and "Ballardesque" or "Ballardian" (from J.G. Ballard, author of Crash). The word "sadistic" is derived from the cruel sexual practices Marquis de Sade described in his novels. Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was the container of the Bokononism family of nonce words.

Another category is words derived from famous characters in literature, such as quixotic (referring to the titular character in Don Quixote de la Mancha by Cervantes), a scrooge (from the main character in Dickens's A Christmas Carol), or a pollyanna (from Eleanor H. Porter's book of the same name). James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, composed in a uniquely complex linguistic style, coined the words monomyth and quark.

List of neologisms [edit]

Science and technology [edit]

• X-ray, or röntgenograph (November 8, 1895, by Röntgen)
• radar (1941) from Radio Detection And Ranging
• laser (1960) from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
• blackhole (1968)
• meme (1976)
• prion (1982)
• beetle bank (early 1990s)
• grep (1970s)
• lidar (late 90s) from Light Detection And Ranging
• Internet (1974)
• translational research (early 1990s)
• Taser (1980s) from Thomas A Swift Electric Rifle
• photoshop, as a verb meaning digital photo manipulation
• searchency, described as an act of search that finds favourable conditions for attaining its end. Urbandictionary
• friend, as a verb meaning to add another user as a friend on a social networking service like Facebook
• Google often used as verb for searching on internet, primarily through Google Search Engine

Science fiction [edit]

• beaming (1931)
• hyperspace (1934)
• robotics (1941)
• waldo (1942)
• Dyson sphere (circa 1960)
• ansible (1966)
• phaser (1966)
• warp speed (1966)
• ringworld (1971)
• lightsaber (1977)
• replicant (1982)
• cyberspace (1984)
• xenocide (1991)
• metaverse (1992)
• alien space bats (1998)
• teleojuxtaposition (2003)

Politics [edit]

• carpetbagging (19th century)
• Gerrymandering (1812)
• Dixiecrat (1948)
• Genocide (1944, by Raphael Lemkin to define Nazi war crimes)
• meritocracy (1958)
• pro-life (1961)
• homophobia (1969)
• political correctness (1970)
• Californication (1970s)
• pro-choice (1975)
• heterosexism (1979)
• glocalisation (1980s)
• sie and hir (pronouns) (1981)
• Republicrat (1985)
• astroturfing (1986)
• dog-whistle politics (1990)
• Islamophobia (1991)
• soccer mom (1992)
• red state/blue state/swing state (c. 2000)
• corporatocracy (2000s)
• Islamofascism (2001)
• Chindia (2004)
• NASCAR dad (2004)
• Saddlebacking (2009)
• Corporacracy (2001)
• omnishambles (2012)
• 3Ds (1993) {Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning work}

Design [edit]

• Bauhaus (early 20th century)
• blobject (1990s)
• fabject (2004), a fabricated 3-D object^[17]
• starchitect (late 1990s)

Popular culture [edit]

These may be considered a variety of slang.

• moin (early 20th century)
• prequel (1958)
• jumping the shark (late 1970s)
• posterized (c. 1980s) ("posterize" also has existed for some time as a term for an image-editing technique; its neologistic sports usage is completely unrelated)
• queercore (mid-1980s)
• plus-size (1990s)
• blog (late 1990s)
• chav (early 2000s)
• webinar (early 2000s)
• wardrobe malfunction (2004)
• truthiness (2005) (already existed as an obscure word previously recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary, but its 2005 usage on the Colbert Report was a neologistic one, with a new definition)
• fauxhawk (late 1990s)
• Brangelina (2005) - used to refer to supercouple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
• Tebowing (2011) - description of a prayerful victory stance derived from NFL quarterback Tim Tebow
• d'oh and cromulent, many culturally significant phrases from The Simpsons (1989–) are in common use
• Indie (late 1990s)^{[citation needed]}

Commerce and advertising [edit]

These neologisms are genericised trademarks.

• aspirin
• hoover
• laundromat
• band-aid
• kleenex
• frisbee
• xerox
• Tupperware
• Post-It

Linguistics [edit]

• retronym (popularized in 1980)
• backronym (1983)
• aptronym (2003; popularized by Franklin Pierce Adams)
• snowclone (2004)
• protologism (2005)

Other [edit]

• nonce words, words coined and used only for a particular occasion, usually for a special literary effect.

See also [edit]

• Archaism
• Aureation
• Language planning
• Mondegreen
• Retronym
• Syllabic abbreviations
• Word formation

Notes [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Look up neologism or protologism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

General information

• Root knowledge : The need for neologisms
• Neologism History & Evaluation
• International Dictionary of Literary Terms : Neologisms
• The Urban Dictionary
• Langmaker.com, a regularly updated directory of over 1,100 invented languages and neographies.
• Wordnik A dictionary which novelty is that it searches the social media for neologisms.

Indices

• Neologisms in Journalistic Text
• Internet Neologisms^{[dead link]}
• Rice University Neologisms Database
• Neologisms from the Internet - with Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales and more...