Definitions

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  • noun linguistics A hypothetical form of a word, reconstructed from derived words

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • More than meets the eye.

    April 30, 2007

  • A hypothetical word or part of a word from which known words have been derived; a form reconstructed in a protolanguage.

    December 20, 2007

  • Eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up from a dream in which people were plunging like missiles into a large body of water and emerging in molten protoforms.

    --Richard Powers, 2007, The Echo Maker, p. 233

    November 7, 2008