Hapax legomenon

From Fresh Dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Noun Phrase 1.3 Usage Note 1.4 See Also

English

Etymology

Greek (Ancient) ἅπαξ λεγόμενον '(something) said only once'.

Noun Phrase

hapax legomenon, plural hapax legomena

1. A word occurring only once in a given corpus.

   Quotations

   • 2000: There is a lovely technical term for a word that appears once in a body of text: a hapax legomenon, plural hapax legomena, Greek for "once said." The term comes from philology, the study of old texts. — Steven Pinker, Words and Rules ISBN 0-465-07269-0, page 172.

Usage Note

The corpus in question is generally implied by context. Commonly it will be one of:

• The known corpus of a given language
• The works of a given author
• A particular work
• A book of the Bible

See Also

• googlewhack
• nonce word
• sui generis

• Wikipedia article on hapax legomenon