A group of letters or speech sounds that looks or sounds like a word but that is not accepted as such by native speakers.
Example sentencesExamples
- About half the letter strings constitute valid words, which are randomly interspersed with non-words.
- The task was simply to indicate if the last word was a word or a non-word.
- And who was the P.T. Barnum-like genius who fused the word Confederate with the non-word rama?
- Page 57 advises the use of non-words like ‘irregardless’ and ‘ironical’ as a good way to convince opponents that you're not very bright and thus not a threat.
- Words are confusing, but they're nothing compared to non-words, mainly because non-words lead to rash assumptions and misunderstandings.