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Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form sparrowgrass, originally from Greek ἀσπάραγος ("asparagus") remade by analogy to the more familiar words sparrow and grass. [8] When the alteration of an unfamiliar word is limited to a single person, it is known as an eggcorn.
Neologisms are often formed by combining existing words (see compound noun and adjective) or by giving words new and unique suffixes or prefixes. [9] Neologisms can also be formed by blending words, for example, "brunch" is a blend of the words "breakfast" and "lunch", or through abbreviation or acronym, by intentionally rhyming with existing words or simply through playing with sounds.
Word has a variety of meanings, and our understand of ideas such as vocabulary size differ depending on the definition used. The most common definition equates words with lemmas (the inflected or dictionary form; this includes walk, but not walks, walked or walking). Most of the time lemmas do not include proper nouns (names of people, places ...
Words with specific American meanings that have different meanings in British English and/or additional meanings common to both dialects (e.g., pants, crib) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in British and American English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different ...
Often, new words are explicitly or indirectly signalled by an author, for instance apologizing for a neologism or unfamiliar term, or adding quotation marks. [2] Neologisms are sometimes introduced via morphological calques, e.g. translating a word from a source language into the target language on a morpheme-for-morpheme basis.
The website includes verbal entries in the style of a conventional dictionary, and the YouTube channel picks some of those words and tries to express their meaning more thoroughly in the form of video essays. The book takes from those previous places, so it has both dictionary style entries and some longer essays on specific words. [3]
gumbo – from Bantu Kongo languages ngombo meaning "okra" hakuna matata – from Swahili, "no trouble" or "no worries" impala – from Zulu im-pala; impi – from Zulu language meaning "war, battle or a regiment" indaba – from Xhosa or Zulu languages – "stories" or "news" typically conflated with "meeting" (often used in South African English)
Words with specific British English meanings that have different meanings in American and/or additional meanings common to both languages (e.g. pants, cot) are to be found at List of words having different meanings in American and British English. When such words are herein used or referenced, they are marked with the flag [DM] (different meaning).