THE LOGOPHILE LEXICON
PART II: DEFINITION AND MEANING
IN THIS SECTION
2.1: Definition and Meaning
2.2a: Parts of Speech
2.2b: Types of Words
2.3a: Translating the Untranslatable
2.3b: Translating Creativity and Words
2.4: Naming Conventions
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2.1: Definition and Meaning
2.2a: Parts of Speech
2.2b: Types of Words
2.3a: Translating the Untranslatable
2.3b: Translating Creativity and Words
2.4: Naming Conventions
THE LOGOPHILE LEXICON >> HOME >> INDEX
Download the Complete Lexicon
Part 2.2: Types of Words
ACRONYM - word formed from initial letters of another word
ACROTELEUTIC - phrase or words at the end of a psalm
ADVERSATIVE - word or phrase expressing opposition
AMBIGRAM - word or words that can be read in more than one way or from more than a single vantage point, such as both right side up and upside down. One of those words is “swims.”
ANNOMINATION - pun; play on words
ANTAGONYM - single word containing meanings that contradict each other, such as ‘cleave’ which can mean both ‘cut apart’ and ‘hold together’.
ANTONYM - word of opposite meaning. ‘Love’ as the antonym of ‘hate’.
ANNOMINATION - pun; play on words
ANTONYM - a word opposite in meaning to another.
ARGON - slang
ARITHMOGRAM - number composed of numerical values of letters in a word
AUTO-ANTONYM or AUTANTONYM, also called a CONTRONYM, CONTRANYM or JANUS word, is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another.
AUTOLOGICAL - (also called a HOMOLOGICAL word) is a word that expresses a property that it also possesses (e.g. the word "word" is a word, "noun" is a noun, "English" is English, PENTASYLLABIC has five syllables). The opposite is a HETEROLOGICAL word, one that does not apply to itself (e.g. "long" is not long, MONOSYLLABIC has five syllables, “anapest” is a dactyl).
BACKRONYM, or BACRONYM - an acronym that is assigned to a word that existed prior to the invention of the backronym. Unlike a typical acronym, in which a new word is constructed from a phrase, the phrase corresponding to the backronym is selected to fit an already existing word. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The word is a blend of back and acronym.
BIVERBAL - of, like or pertaining to two words; having a double sense
BUZZWORD - word that is fashionable and used more to impress than to inform; in particular a word of a specialized field or group used primarily to impress laypersons
CAPITONYM - a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized; the capitalization usually applies due to one form being a proper noun or eponym. It is a portmanteau of the word capital with the suffix -onym. A capitonym is a form of homograph and – when the two forms are pronounced differently – is also a form of heteronym. In situations where both words should be capitalized (such as the beginning of a sentence), there will be nothing to distinguish between them except the context in which they are used.
CATEGOREMATIC - words are words that designate self-sufficient entities (i.e. nouns or adjectives). They are capable of standing alone as the subject or predicate of a logical proposition : expressing a complete substantive meaning. Categorematic words include names (for example, 'John') and predicates (for example, 'tiger' and 'smokes').
CLERIHEW - is a short comic or nonsensical poem that details the life of a famous figure in just a few lines.
CLIPPING is a type of abbreviation of a word in which one part is 'clipped' off the rest, and the remaining word now means essentially the same thing as what the whole word means or meant. For example, the word rifle is a fairly modern clipping of an earlier compound rifle gun, meaning a gun with a rifled barrel.
COHYPONYM - word which is one of multiple hyponyms of another word
CONTENT WORDS - are words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. In a traditional approach, nouns were said to name objects and other entities, lexical verbs to indicate actions, adjectives to refer to attributes of entities and adverbs, to attributes of actions. They contrast with function words, which are words that have very little substantive meaning and primarily denote grammatical relationships between content words, such as prepositions (in, out, under, etc.), pronouns (I, you, he, who, etc.), conjunctions (and, but, till, as, etc.), etc.
CONTRACTIONS - are a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds. In linguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused with crasis, abbreviations and initialisms (including acronyms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. Contraction is also distinguished from clipping, where beginnings and endings are omitted.
CONTRONYM - a word which is its own opposite. "Cleave," meaning "adhere" and "separate."
COPULA (plural: copulas or copulae; abbreviated cop) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word is in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase was not being in the sentence "It was not being used." The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things. A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a COPULATIVE or COPULAR verb. In English primary education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb.
CREATIVE RESPELLING - Sometimes words are formed by simply changing the spelling of a word that the speaker wants to relate to the new word. Product names often involve creative respelling, such as Mr. Kleen.
CRUTCH WORDS - Filler, fluff, weasel words, crutch words—all refer to the same bad habits that result in us cluttering up our message with stuff that doesn’t matter. Crutch words are the words and phrases writers use to prop themselves up when we don’t quite know what to say. They appear frequently in everyday conversation, and that makes it easier for them to creep into our professional writing—whether that’s a presentation or speech, a business email or memo, or even our next book.
CRYPTOPHASIA - a language consisting of words or phrases understandable only between twins and which is usually developed as the twins grow up together.
DEMONYM - a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (village, city, region, province, state, continent). Demonyms are used to designate all people (general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place.
DEMONYMY or DEMONYMICS - is the study of demonyms
DERIVATION - the creation of words by modification of a root without the addition of other roots. Often the effect is a change in part of speech.
DICTION refers to a writer’s purposeful word choice. Along with syntax, diction can be used to create tone and imagery in creative writing.
DOUBLE NEGATIVES are a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation
DOUBLETS - two or more words in the same language are called doublets or ETYMOLOGICAL TWINS or TWINLINGS (or possibly triplets, and so forth) when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the words entered the language through different routes. Given that the kinship between words that have the same root and the same meaning is fairly obvious, the term is mostly used to characterize pairs of words that have diverged at least somewhat in meaning.
EPITROPE - a figure of speech in which permission is granted to do what someone proposes to do or is already doing.
EQUIVOQUE - an equivocal word, phrase, or expression; also, a pun or double meaning; also, ambiguity.
ETHNONYM (from the Greek: ἔθνος, éthnos, "nation" and ὄνομα, ónoma, "name") is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and AUTONYMS, or ENDONYMS (whose name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).
As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically-dominant group in Germany is the Germans. That ethnonym is an EXONYM used in English but itself comes from Latin. Conversely, Germans themselves use the autonym of Deutschen.
EXISTENTIAL CLAUSES are clauses that refer to the existence or presence of something. Examples in English include the sentences "There is a God" and "There are boys in the yard". The use of such clauses can be considered analogous to existential quantification in predicate logic (often expressed with the phrase "There exist(s)...").
GARDEN PATH SENTENCES - refer to a type of sentence where an initial reading of the phrase will likely be incorrect; it will thus call for a re-reading. In this example, ‘raced past the barn’ is a reduced relative clause, meaning it lacks a relative pronoun – a who, which, or that. The correct parsing of the sentence would hence be ‘The horse – who was raced past the barn – fell.’ This gives a much fuller understanding of the sentence and it can now be understood that the word ‘fell’ is the main verb.
GENERONYM is the brand name we use to mean an everyday item. These terms have seeped into the general psyche and are used more often than their technical counterparts. We almost always ‘Google’ something instead of doing an ‘online search’.
GHOST WORDS - There are actual words that mean absolutely nothing, and they are called ghost words. These words include “dord,” which was printed in a dictionary in the mid-1900s but was actually just a typographical error. Tweed, gravy, and syllabus were ghost words at one time until someone assigned them a specific meaning.
HEADLINESE is the nonconversational, quick language which is used for headlines (usually of print newspapers, where space is an issue). Headlinese often uses shorter synonyms and articles are usually omitted. Verbs are in the present tense, unless the future is mentioned – in this case, the full infinitive is used.
HETERONYM (also known as a HETEROPHONE) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, lead (a metal element) and lead (a leash or halter to direct an animal) are heteronyms, but mean (intend) and mean (average) are not, since they are pronounced the same. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realization, in stress pattern, or in other ways.
HOMONYM — A word which is spelled and pronounced identically to another word, but which has a different meaning. For example, a swimming POOL versus a POOL table. Also, HOMOGRAPH
HOMOPHONE — A word which is spelled differently from another word, but which is pronounced identically. For example, HOARSE versus HORSE; or TWO versus, TO, versus, TOO.
HYPERNYM - word representing a class of words or things
HYPONYM - word more specific than a related generic term. For example: spoon is a hyponym of cutlery.
IDIOM — A phrase, construction, or expression that is understood in a given language. This expression has a meaning that differs from typical syntactic patterns or that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together. Some examples of idiomatic expressions would include, "to kick the bucket" means "to die," or "to throw in the towel" means "to give up" or "to stop"
IMPERATIVE SENTENCE (one giving an order), there is usually no subject in the independent clause: Go away until I call you. It is possible, however, to include you as the subject for emphasis: You stay away from me.
INFINITIVE (abbreviated inf) is a linguistics term referring to certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited". In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive.
INKHORNISM - pedantic word or expression
INTERROGATIVE WORDS or QUESTION WORDS are a function word used to ask a question, such as what, which, when, where, who, whom, whose, why, whether and how. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of them start with wh- (compare Five Ws). They may be used in both direct questions (Where is he going?) and in indirect questions (I wonder where he is going). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used as relative pronouns in certain relative clauses (The country where he was born) and certain adverb clauses (I go where he goes).
INVERSION is any of several grammatical constructions where two expressions switch their canonical order of appearance, that is, they invert. There are several types of subject-verb inversion in English: LOCATIVE inversion, DIRECTIVE inversion, COPULAR inversion, and QUOTATIVE inversion. The most frequent type of inversion in English is subject–auxiliary inversion in which an auxiliary verb changes places with its subject; it often occurs in questions, such as Are you coming?, with the subject you are switched with the auxiliary are.
ISONYM - word having the same derivation or form as another
KENNING - replacement of a common noun by a more exciting compound, for example ‘Information superhighway’ rather than ‘Internet.’
LACUNA - a non-English word that describes something for which there is no English word
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY- an unnecessary sentence is a prime example of lexical ambiguity, in which homonyms (words with the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meaning) and homophones (words that simply sound the same) can be combined to form a complex sentence structure with grammatical validity.
LOGOGRAM - written symbol representing an entire spoken word without expressing its pronunciation
MALAPROPISM - occurs chiefly when a word or phrase means something different from the word the writer or speaker intended to use, or if the resulting sentence is nonsensical. The phrase above comes from Act II Scene V of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, in which the hapless Constable Dogberry informs Governor Leonato that he has captured a couple of people who are thought to have committed a crime; Dogberry mistakenly uses the words “comprehended” and “auspicious” when, of course, he meant to use “apprehended” and “suspicious.” Comic ruckus arises soon after.
METONYM - word standing in for something connected to it, such as ‘the Crown’ when referring to the monarchy, ‘the bottle’ when referring to alcohol, ‘wheels’ when referring to a car.
NOMIC - customary, ordinary; describing the usual English spelling of a word, as distinct from phonetic spellings.
NONCE WORD (also called an OCCASIONALISM) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.
Some nonce words may acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, possibly even becoming an established part of the language, at which point they stop being nonce words. Some nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable, but they are useful for exactly that reason — the words "wug" and "blicket" for instance were invented by researchers to be used in exercises in child language testing.
NONWORD — A string of letters which cannot be pronounced and which has no meaning. For example, MCVRI or HEGZT. Contrast with pseudoword.
NOVEL CREATION - In novel creation, a speaker or writer forms a word without starting from other morphemes. It is as if the word if formed out of 'whole cloth', without reusing any parts.
Some examples of now-conventionalized words that were novel creations include blimp, googol (the mathematical term), bling, and possibly slang, which emerged in the last 200 years with no obvious etymology. Some novel creations seem to display 'sound symbolism', in which a word's phonological form suggests its meaning in some way. For example, the sound of the word bling seems to evoke heavy jewelry making noise.
OXYMORON - figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).
OXYTONE - relating to or being a word that has an acute accent on the last syllable, especially a Greek word; also, a word with this quality.
PALABRA - a word; talk
PALINDROME - a word, phrase, clause, or sentence that reads the same regularly as it does when its letters are reversed; a type of palingram. "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."
PALINGRAM - a word, phrase, clause, or sentence that reads the same backwards after rearranging segments. "Workmate did teamwork," is a palingram, because the sentence can be rearranged into four four-letter segments, with one three-letter segment in the middle; by reversing the order of the segments and, when necessary, rearranging the letters within each segment, the sentence reads the same backwards.
PANGRAM SENTENCES -refers to a sentence that uses every single letter in the alphabet. An example of a pangram is the sentence, “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” which many people recognize from typing class all those years ago.
PARONYMS are words that are pronounced or written in a similar way but which have different lexical meanings. Paronyms contrast with homonyms, which are words with different meaning having the same pronunciation or spelling. Examples of paronyms include: alternately and alternatively
or collision and collusion.
PARAPROSDOKIANS are sentences that catch you off guard and cause you to have to look again at the first part of the sentence. Examples include a Groucho Marx line that says, “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” clause. From the Greek ‘para’ meaning ‘against’ and ‘prosdokia’ meaning ‘expectation’, a paraprosdokian leaves the reader somewhat baffled by the conclusion of the sentence. They are most often used for comedic effect (and can sometimes result in an anti-climax), especially by the supremely talented Mitch Hedberg: “I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long.” These sentences, in essence, end with something that resembles a punchline.
PARONYM - a paronymous word.
PARONYMOUS - of or relating to a word having the same stem as another. Beautiful and beauteous are paranymous words, or paranyms.
PAROXYTONE - relating to or being a word that has an acute accent on the next to last syllable; also, a word with this quality.
PHANTONYM is a word that appears to mean one thing, but in fact means another. The term was coined by Jack Rosenthal in his 2009 article for the NY Times. Phantonyms are usually commonly confused words.
PORTMANTEAU word (from French "porte-manteau" (coat rack) ; in French: mot-valise) is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words or their phonemes (sounds) are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes.
PEJORATIVE - an insult or a word with a negative connotation that expresses contempt, dismissiveness, or hatred.
POLYPHONE — A word which is spelled the same as another word, but which sounds different when pronounced. For example, you can WIND a watch, and the WIND blows hard.
POLYSEMY - an instance of a word or sentence or other writing being polysemous.
PSEUDOHOMOPHONE — A pseudoword, which when pronounced, sounds like a real, familiar word. For example, the pseudohomophone BRANE sounds like the real word BRAIN.
PSEUDOWORD — A pronounceable string of letters which has no meaning; also called invented words, nonsense words, or made-up words. For example, MIVIT, HEASE, and MIVE are all pronounceable, but don't mean anything.
PUN - also called PARONOMASIA, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or figurative language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple (correct or fairly reasonable) interpretations. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, especially as their usage and meaning are usually specific to a particular language or its culture.
PUNDIGRION - play on words; pun
PORTMANTEAU - word formed by blending two existing words
REANALYSIS - Sometimes speakers unconsciously change the morphological boundaries of a word, creating a new morph or making an old one unrecognizable. This happened in hamburger, which was originally Hamburger steak 'chopped and formed steak in the Hamburg style, then hamburger (hamburg + er), then ham + burger
REBORROWING is the process where a word travels from one language to another and then back to the originating language in a different form or with a different meaning. This path is indicated by A→B→A, where A is the originating language, and can take many forms. A reborrowed word is sometimes called a RÜCKWANDERER (German, a 'returner').
RECURSIVE ACRONYMS are acronyms that refer to themselves. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. Recursive acronyms typically form backwardly: either an existing ordinary acronym is given a new explanation of what the letters stand for, or a name is turned into an acronym by giving the letters an explanation of what they stand for, in each case with the first letter standing recursively for the whole acronym.
REPETEND - figures, words, notes or numbers that are repeated
RHEMA - word; verb
SEMANTIC NONSENSE refers to sentences that follow grammatically correct words but which do not make any sense. Examples include Noam Chomsky’s, “colorless green ideas sleep funny,” which some people have interpreted to mean, “newly formed bland ideas are inexpressible in an infuriating way.” The sentence itself has gained fame since its inception by Chomsky in 1955.
SLURVIAN - English characterized by slurred pronunciation. Examples include ‘gimme’ instead of ‘give me,’ ‘d'jo’ instead of ‘did you,’ and ‘Frisco’ instead of ‘San Francisco.’
SYNONYM - a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
SYNCATEGOREMATIC words are words "that do not stand by themselves... (i.e. prepositions, logical connectives, etc.)"
Examples of syncategorematic terms include:
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY refers to sentences that can have multiple meanings. Examples include, “I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola,” from a popular song by The Kinks. It can mean, “I’m glad I’m a man, and Lola is also glad to be a man,” or “I’m glad Lola and I are both men,” among other meanings.
TEMPORAL DEIXIS - are contingent on the use of a timeous word which changes the meaning based on the moment in time it is said. The exact time the word ‘now’ refers to changes constantly. ‘Tomorrow’ is always the next day and that can never change, but the exact day tomorrow is always changing. Deixis also exists when a place is discussed. “I live here” changes depending on where one lives. Likewise, “How is the weather over there?” remains an ambiguous sentence through the use of the deictic adverb ‘there’. The final common form of deixis involves the person: “Would you go to dinner with me?” changes meaning depending on whom the ‘you’ in the sentence is. This is made even more difficult to understand in reality if more than one person is present and the speaker has no general focus
TETRAGRAMMATON - sacred word or acronym of four letters
ACROTELEUTIC - phrase or words at the end of a psalm
ADVERSATIVE - word or phrase expressing opposition
AMBIGRAM - word or words that can be read in more than one way or from more than a single vantage point, such as both right side up and upside down. One of those words is “swims.”
ANNOMINATION - pun; play on words
ANTAGONYM - single word containing meanings that contradict each other, such as ‘cleave’ which can mean both ‘cut apart’ and ‘hold together’.
ANTONYM - word of opposite meaning. ‘Love’ as the antonym of ‘hate’.
ANNOMINATION - pun; play on words
ANTONYM - a word opposite in meaning to another.
ARGON - slang
ARITHMOGRAM - number composed of numerical values of letters in a word
AUTO-ANTONYM or AUTANTONYM, also called a CONTRONYM, CONTRANYM or JANUS word, is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another.
- For example, the word cleave can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind together". This phenomenon is called ENANTIOSEMY, , ANTILOGY or AUTANTONYMY.
AUTOLOGICAL - (also called a HOMOLOGICAL word) is a word that expresses a property that it also possesses (e.g. the word "word" is a word, "noun" is a noun, "English" is English, PENTASYLLABIC has five syllables). The opposite is a HETEROLOGICAL word, one that does not apply to itself (e.g. "long" is not long, MONOSYLLABIC has five syllables, “anapest” is a dactyl).
BACKRONYM, or BACRONYM - an acronym that is assigned to a word that existed prior to the invention of the backronym. Unlike a typical acronym, in which a new word is constructed from a phrase, the phrase corresponding to the backronym is selected to fit an already existing word. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The word is a blend of back and acronym.
BIVERBAL - of, like or pertaining to two words; having a double sense
BUZZWORD - word that is fashionable and used more to impress than to inform; in particular a word of a specialized field or group used primarily to impress laypersons
CAPITONYM - a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized; the capitalization usually applies due to one form being a proper noun or eponym. It is a portmanteau of the word capital with the suffix -onym. A capitonym is a form of homograph and – when the two forms are pronounced differently – is also a form of heteronym. In situations where both words should be capitalized (such as the beginning of a sentence), there will be nothing to distinguish between them except the context in which they are used.
CATEGOREMATIC - words are words that designate self-sufficient entities (i.e. nouns or adjectives). They are capable of standing alone as the subject or predicate of a logical proposition : expressing a complete substantive meaning. Categorematic words include names (for example, 'John') and predicates (for example, 'tiger' and 'smokes').
CLERIHEW - is a short comic or nonsensical poem that details the life of a famous figure in just a few lines.
CLIPPING is a type of abbreviation of a word in which one part is 'clipped' off the rest, and the remaining word now means essentially the same thing as what the whole word means or meant. For example, the word rifle is a fairly modern clipping of an earlier compound rifle gun, meaning a gun with a rifled barrel.
COHYPONYM - word which is one of multiple hyponyms of another word
CONTENT WORDS - are words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. In a traditional approach, nouns were said to name objects and other entities, lexical verbs to indicate actions, adjectives to refer to attributes of entities and adverbs, to attributes of actions. They contrast with function words, which are words that have very little substantive meaning and primarily denote grammatical relationships between content words, such as prepositions (in, out, under, etc.), pronouns (I, you, he, who, etc.), conjunctions (and, but, till, as, etc.), etc.
CONTRACTIONS - are a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters and sounds. In linguistic analysis, contractions should not be confused with crasis, abbreviations and initialisms (including acronyms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. Contraction is also distinguished from clipping, where beginnings and endings are omitted.
CONTRONYM - a word which is its own opposite. "Cleave," meaning "adhere" and "separate."
COPULA (plural: copulas or copulae; abbreviated cop) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word is in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase was not being in the sentence "It was not being used." The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things. A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a COPULATIVE or COPULAR verb. In English primary education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb.
CREATIVE RESPELLING - Sometimes words are formed by simply changing the spelling of a word that the speaker wants to relate to the new word. Product names often involve creative respelling, such as Mr. Kleen.
CRUTCH WORDS - Filler, fluff, weasel words, crutch words—all refer to the same bad habits that result in us cluttering up our message with stuff that doesn’t matter. Crutch words are the words and phrases writers use to prop themselves up when we don’t quite know what to say. They appear frequently in everyday conversation, and that makes it easier for them to creep into our professional writing—whether that’s a presentation or speech, a business email or memo, or even our next book.
CRYPTOPHASIA - a language consisting of words or phrases understandable only between twins and which is usually developed as the twins grow up together.
DEMONYM - a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (village, city, region, province, state, continent). Demonyms are used to designate all people (general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place.
DEMONYMY or DEMONYMICS - is the study of demonyms
DERIVATION - the creation of words by modification of a root without the addition of other roots. Often the effect is a change in part of speech.
DICTION refers to a writer’s purposeful word choice. Along with syntax, diction can be used to create tone and imagery in creative writing.
- FORMAL DICTION - should be employed when you wish to maintain a professional demeanor while keeping the situation impersonal. When using formal diction, always remember to use proper grammar and speak in the third person whenever possible.
- INFORMAL or CASUAL DICTION - best used in informal situations, such as letters between friends or when writing literature.
- COLLOQUIAL DICTION - utilizes words from everyday speech, which can vary across regions or groups of people. This type of diction is common in dialogue, since it can make a work more realistic and relatable.
- SLANG WORDS - are usually used within certain social groups and tend to change with time.
DOUBLE NEGATIVES are a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation
DOUBLETS - two or more words in the same language are called doublets or ETYMOLOGICAL TWINS or TWINLINGS (or possibly triplets, and so forth) when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the words entered the language through different routes. Given that the kinship between words that have the same root and the same meaning is fairly obvious, the term is mostly used to characterize pairs of words that have diverged at least somewhat in meaning.
EPITROPE - a figure of speech in which permission is granted to do what someone proposes to do or is already doing.
EQUIVOQUE - an equivocal word, phrase, or expression; also, a pun or double meaning; also, ambiguity.
ETHNONYM (from the Greek: ἔθνος, éthnos, "nation" and ὄνομα, ónoma, "name") is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and AUTONYMS, or ENDONYMS (whose name is created and used by the ethnic group itself).
As an example, the ethnonym for the ethnically-dominant group in Germany is the Germans. That ethnonym is an EXONYM used in English but itself comes from Latin. Conversely, Germans themselves use the autonym of Deutschen.
EXISTENTIAL CLAUSES are clauses that refer to the existence or presence of something. Examples in English include the sentences "There is a God" and "There are boys in the yard". The use of such clauses can be considered analogous to existential quantification in predicate logic (often expressed with the phrase "There exist(s)...").
GARDEN PATH SENTENCES - refer to a type of sentence where an initial reading of the phrase will likely be incorrect; it will thus call for a re-reading. In this example, ‘raced past the barn’ is a reduced relative clause, meaning it lacks a relative pronoun – a who, which, or that. The correct parsing of the sentence would hence be ‘The horse – who was raced past the barn – fell.’ This gives a much fuller understanding of the sentence and it can now be understood that the word ‘fell’ is the main verb.
GENERONYM is the brand name we use to mean an everyday item. These terms have seeped into the general psyche and are used more often than their technical counterparts. We almost always ‘Google’ something instead of doing an ‘online search’.
GHOST WORDS - There are actual words that mean absolutely nothing, and they are called ghost words. These words include “dord,” which was printed in a dictionary in the mid-1900s but was actually just a typographical error. Tweed, gravy, and syllabus were ghost words at one time until someone assigned them a specific meaning.
HEADLINESE is the nonconversational, quick language which is used for headlines (usually of print newspapers, where space is an issue). Headlinese often uses shorter synonyms and articles are usually omitted. Verbs are in the present tense, unless the future is mentioned – in this case, the full infinitive is used.
HETERONYM (also known as a HETEROPHONE) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones. Thus, lead (a metal element) and lead (a leash or halter to direct an animal) are heteronyms, but mean (intend) and mean (average) are not, since they are pronounced the same. Heteronym pronunciation may vary in vowel realization, in stress pattern, or in other ways.
HOMONYM — A word which is spelled and pronounced identically to another word, but which has a different meaning. For example, a swimming POOL versus a POOL table. Also, HOMOGRAPH
HOMOPHONE — A word which is spelled differently from another word, but which is pronounced identically. For example, HOARSE versus HORSE; or TWO versus, TO, versus, TOO.
HYPERNYM - word representing a class of words or things
HYPONYM - word more specific than a related generic term. For example: spoon is a hyponym of cutlery.
IDIOM — A phrase, construction, or expression that is understood in a given language. This expression has a meaning that differs from typical syntactic patterns or that differs from the literal meaning of its parts taken together. Some examples of idiomatic expressions would include, "to kick the bucket" means "to die," or "to throw in the towel" means "to give up" or "to stop"
IMPERATIVE SENTENCE (one giving an order), there is usually no subject in the independent clause: Go away until I call you. It is possible, however, to include you as the subject for emphasis: You stay away from me.
INFINITIVE (abbreviated inf) is a linguistics term referring to certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited". In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive.
INKHORNISM - pedantic word or expression
INTERROGATIVE WORDS or QUESTION WORDS are a function word used to ask a question, such as what, which, when, where, who, whom, whose, why, whether and how. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of them start with wh- (compare Five Ws). They may be used in both direct questions (Where is he going?) and in indirect questions (I wonder where he is going). In English and various other languages the same forms are also used as relative pronouns in certain relative clauses (The country where he was born) and certain adverb clauses (I go where he goes).
- A particular type of interrogative word is the INTERROGATIVE PARTICLE, which serves to convert a statement into a yes–no question, without having any other meaning. Examples include est-ce que in French.
INVERSION is any of several grammatical constructions where two expressions switch their canonical order of appearance, that is, they invert. There are several types of subject-verb inversion in English: LOCATIVE inversion, DIRECTIVE inversion, COPULAR inversion, and QUOTATIVE inversion. The most frequent type of inversion in English is subject–auxiliary inversion in which an auxiliary verb changes places with its subject; it often occurs in questions, such as Are you coming?, with the subject you are switched with the auxiliary are.
ISONYM - word having the same derivation or form as another
KENNING - replacement of a common noun by a more exciting compound, for example ‘Information superhighway’ rather than ‘Internet.’
LACUNA - a non-English word that describes something for which there is no English word
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY- an unnecessary sentence is a prime example of lexical ambiguity, in which homonyms (words with the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meaning) and homophones (words that simply sound the same) can be combined to form a complex sentence structure with grammatical validity.
LOGOGRAM - written symbol representing an entire spoken word without expressing its pronunciation
MALAPROPISM - occurs chiefly when a word or phrase means something different from the word the writer or speaker intended to use, or if the resulting sentence is nonsensical. The phrase above comes from Act II Scene V of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, in which the hapless Constable Dogberry informs Governor Leonato that he has captured a couple of people who are thought to have committed a crime; Dogberry mistakenly uses the words “comprehended” and “auspicious” when, of course, he meant to use “apprehended” and “suspicious.” Comic ruckus arises soon after.
METONYM - word standing in for something connected to it, such as ‘the Crown’ when referring to the monarchy, ‘the bottle’ when referring to alcohol, ‘wheels’ when referring to a car.
NOMIC - customary, ordinary; describing the usual English spelling of a word, as distinct from phonetic spellings.
NONCE WORD (also called an OCCASIONALISM) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.
Some nonce words may acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, possibly even becoming an established part of the language, at which point they stop being nonce words. Some nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable, but they are useful for exactly that reason — the words "wug" and "blicket" for instance were invented by researchers to be used in exercises in child language testing.
NONWORD — A string of letters which cannot be pronounced and which has no meaning. For example, MCVRI or HEGZT. Contrast with pseudoword.
NOVEL CREATION - In novel creation, a speaker or writer forms a word without starting from other morphemes. It is as if the word if formed out of 'whole cloth', without reusing any parts.
Some examples of now-conventionalized words that were novel creations include blimp, googol (the mathematical term), bling, and possibly slang, which emerged in the last 200 years with no obvious etymology. Some novel creations seem to display 'sound symbolism', in which a word's phonological form suggests its meaning in some way. For example, the sound of the word bling seems to evoke heavy jewelry making noise.
OXYMORON - figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).
OXYTONE - relating to or being a word that has an acute accent on the last syllable, especially a Greek word; also, a word with this quality.
PALABRA - a word; talk
PALINDROME - a word, phrase, clause, or sentence that reads the same regularly as it does when its letters are reversed; a type of palingram. "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."
PALINGRAM - a word, phrase, clause, or sentence that reads the same backwards after rearranging segments. "Workmate did teamwork," is a palingram, because the sentence can be rearranged into four four-letter segments, with one three-letter segment in the middle; by reversing the order of the segments and, when necessary, rearranging the letters within each segment, the sentence reads the same backwards.
PANGRAM SENTENCES -refers to a sentence that uses every single letter in the alphabet. An example of a pangram is the sentence, “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” which many people recognize from typing class all those years ago.
PARONYMS are words that are pronounced or written in a similar way but which have different lexical meanings. Paronyms contrast with homonyms, which are words with different meaning having the same pronunciation or spelling. Examples of paronyms include: alternately and alternatively
or collision and collusion.
PARAPROSDOKIANS are sentences that catch you off guard and cause you to have to look again at the first part of the sentence. Examples include a Groucho Marx line that says, “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” clause. From the Greek ‘para’ meaning ‘against’ and ‘prosdokia’ meaning ‘expectation’, a paraprosdokian leaves the reader somewhat baffled by the conclusion of the sentence. They are most often used for comedic effect (and can sometimes result in an anti-climax), especially by the supremely talented Mitch Hedberg: “I haven’t slept for ten days, because that would be too long.” These sentences, in essence, end with something that resembles a punchline.
PARONYM - a paronymous word.
PARONYMOUS - of or relating to a word having the same stem as another. Beautiful and beauteous are paranymous words, or paranyms.
PAROXYTONE - relating to or being a word that has an acute accent on the next to last syllable; also, a word with this quality.
PHANTONYM is a word that appears to mean one thing, but in fact means another. The term was coined by Jack Rosenthal in his 2009 article for the NY Times. Phantonyms are usually commonly confused words.
PORTMANTEAU word (from French "porte-manteau" (coat rack) ; in French: mot-valise) is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words or their phonemes (sounds) are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes.
PEJORATIVE - an insult or a word with a negative connotation that expresses contempt, dismissiveness, or hatred.
POLYPHONE — A word which is spelled the same as another word, but which sounds different when pronounced. For example, you can WIND a watch, and the WIND blows hard.
POLYSEMY - an instance of a word or sentence or other writing being polysemous.
PSEUDOHOMOPHONE — A pseudoword, which when pronounced, sounds like a real, familiar word. For example, the pseudohomophone BRANE sounds like the real word BRAIN.
PSEUDOWORD — A pronounceable string of letters which has no meaning; also called invented words, nonsense words, or made-up words. For example, MIVIT, HEASE, and MIVE are all pronounceable, but don't mean anything.
PUN - also called PARONOMASIA, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic, homographic, metonymic, or figurative language. A pun differs from a malapropism in that a malapropism is an incorrect variation on a correct expression, while a pun involves expressions with multiple (correct or fairly reasonable) interpretations. Puns may be regarded as in-jokes or idiomatic constructions, especially as their usage and meaning are usually specific to a particular language or its culture.
PUNDIGRION - play on words; pun
PORTMANTEAU - word formed by blending two existing words
REANALYSIS - Sometimes speakers unconsciously change the morphological boundaries of a word, creating a new morph or making an old one unrecognizable. This happened in hamburger, which was originally Hamburger steak 'chopped and formed steak in the Hamburg style, then hamburger (hamburg + er), then ham + burger
REBORROWING is the process where a word travels from one language to another and then back to the originating language in a different form or with a different meaning. This path is indicated by A→B→A, where A is the originating language, and can take many forms. A reborrowed word is sometimes called a RÜCKWANDERER (German, a 'returner').
RECURSIVE ACRONYMS are acronyms that refer to themselves. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. Recursive acronyms typically form backwardly: either an existing ordinary acronym is given a new explanation of what the letters stand for, or a name is turned into an acronym by giving the letters an explanation of what they stand for, in each case with the first letter standing recursively for the whole acronym.
REPETEND - figures, words, notes or numbers that are repeated
RHEMA - word; verb
SEMANTIC NONSENSE refers to sentences that follow grammatically correct words but which do not make any sense. Examples include Noam Chomsky’s, “colorless green ideas sleep funny,” which some people have interpreted to mean, “newly formed bland ideas are inexpressible in an infuriating way.” The sentence itself has gained fame since its inception by Chomsky in 1955.
SLURVIAN - English characterized by slurred pronunciation. Examples include ‘gimme’ instead of ‘give me,’ ‘d'jo’ instead of ‘did you,’ and ‘Frisco’ instead of ‘San Francisco.’
SYNONYM - a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
SYNCATEGOREMATIC words are words "that do not stand by themselves... (i.e. prepositions, logical connectives, etc.)"
Examples of syncategorematic terms include:
- articles (for example, 'the' and 'a')
- connectives (for example, 'and' and 'or')
- prepositions (for exmaple, 'in' and 'at')
- quantifiers (for example, 'some' and 'all')
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY refers to sentences that can have multiple meanings. Examples include, “I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola,” from a popular song by The Kinks. It can mean, “I’m glad I’m a man, and Lola is also glad to be a man,” or “I’m glad Lola and I are both men,” among other meanings.
TEMPORAL DEIXIS - are contingent on the use of a timeous word which changes the meaning based on the moment in time it is said. The exact time the word ‘now’ refers to changes constantly. ‘Tomorrow’ is always the next day and that can never change, but the exact day tomorrow is always changing. Deixis also exists when a place is discussed. “I live here” changes depending on where one lives. Likewise, “How is the weather over there?” remains an ambiguous sentence through the use of the deictic adverb ‘there’. The final common form of deixis involves the person: “Would you go to dinner with me?” changes meaning depending on whom the ‘you’ in the sentence is. This is made even more difficult to understand in reality if more than one person is present and the speaker has no general focus
TETRAGRAMMATON - sacred word or acronym of four letters
THE LOGOPHILE LEXICON IS PART OF A
SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
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A Beautiful Word: Web | Download (beautiful words)
The Logophile Lexicon: Web | Book (words about words)
Defining New Ideas: Web | Book (creativity & design)
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INTRODUCTION | TOPIC INDEX | DOWNLOAD
www.logophilelexicon.com
SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
A collection of Vocabulary Words & Terms By Kai of www.bykairos.com
The Collection Includes:
A Beautiful Word: Web | Download (beautiful words)
The Logophile Lexicon: Web | Book (words about words)
Defining New Ideas: Web | Book (creativity & design)
Defining the Brain: Web | Downloads (terms of the mind)
INTRODUCTION | TOPIC INDEX | DOWNLOAD
www.logophilelexicon.com