neologism
/nɪˈɒlədʒɪz(ə)m
/noun
1A newly coined word or expression.His work routinely exhibits a Joycean verbal playfulness and exuberance, and is littered with inventive neologisms and mixed metaphors....
- Politicians invent neologisms and use words in a very imaginative way.
- Radner writes long, convoluted sentences and regularly coins neologisms; he also employs words without much sensitivity to the alternative associations that they are likely to breed in the minds of the reader.
Synonyms
new word, new expression, new term, new phrase, coinage, newly coined word, made-up word, invented word, invention, nonce word;
portmanteau word
1.1 [mass noun] The coining or use of new words.‘I am not afraid of neologism,’ wrote the fearless Professor Fowler....
- Justifying speciesism takes us back to square one, but with an ugly, misleading and tendentious neologism thrown in.
- At the risk of coining a fourth type (writers are only allowed one neologism per article) we could say that the global economy (and its attendant pollution) is itself 4th nature.
Derivatives
neologist
- Although, thinking about it, I'm sure my vocabulary has been enlarged in previously unexplored directions by the energetic neologists of spam.
- Always the playful neologist (pertussion is his coinage from the technical term for whooping cough, pertussis), Wallace has lately become a professor of literature.
- In 2001 Hebden perfected what neologists might term ‘folktronica’ on Pause, a late summer's melange of delicate found-sound sonics and charmingly recontextualised acoustic melodies and beats.
neologize
/ (also neologise) verb ...- We have discovered a rich new seam of zeitgeist, and the publishers are neologising all the way to the bank.
- There are words borrowed from Chinese dialect and Malay and some of which are neologised from the vernacular.
- Apparently, they had no idea that cos was short for because, and typically neologised into cuz in the states.
Origin
Early 19th century: from French néologisme.