Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A word occurring, invented, or used just for a particular occasion; for example, the word mileconsuming in "the wagon beginning to fall into its slow and mileconsuming clatter” ( William Faulkner).
Wiktionary
- n. A word invented for the occasion.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. “a word apparently employed only
for the nonce ”.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a word with a special meaning used for a special occasion
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nonce word’.
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There's a word for it
catkin, pastiche, badonkadonk, biome, omphaloscopy, pogonophobia, reptation, anathema, xyst, commodify, commoditize, monetize and 46 more...
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Neologistics
Basically this is a "words about words" list with a focus on neologism generation in all its various forms.
wordplay, paronomasia, madeupical, logodaedaly, onomatopoeic, verbification, nominalization, recontextualization, spoonerism, typo recycling, sloganeer, wordsmith and 59 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
Jesterpatch I put verbal inventions into my two blogs whenever inspiration comes noncing. In the family blog, I described my new hobby of piling rocks on rocks into animal and human forms by instantiating the term "gerp":
"Quaker Hill's rocky terrain became fertile soil (so to speak) for my current hobby, which could aptly be called, "Rockery." But starting around 1835, the word began answering to the definition, "rock garden," and I don't do rock gardens. So I created a nonce word for the craft: " Gravity-enabled Rock Placements," which, as an acronym, struts into the upper case to become GERPs, and then, sans pomp, settles down to earth into the lower-case to become the neologism "gerps"
Addenda: multiple gerps in close proximity are known in the informal as "gerp groups" and in the formal as "rockcolonies." Sep 29, 2007
Jesterpatch I put verbal inventions into my two blogs whenever inspiration comes noncing. In the family blog, I described my new hobby of piling rocks on rocks into animal and human forms by instantiating the term "gerp":
"Quaker Hill's rocky terrain became fertile soil (so to speak) for my current hobby, which could aptly be called, "rockery." But starting around 1835, the word began answering to the definition, "rock garden," and I don't do rock gardens. So I created a nonce word for the craft: " Gravity-enabled Rock Placements," which, as an acronym, struts into the upper case to become GERPs, and then, sans pomp, settles down to earth into the lower-case to become the neologism "gerps"
Addenda: multiple gerps in close proximity are known in the informal as "gerp groups" and in the formal as "rockcolonies." Sep 29, 2007
reesetee A word occurring, invented, or used just for a particular occasion (although some have gone on to lead rather long lives). Sep 28, 2007