Where it sits
Not rare, not obsolete: never used at all. Its whole life was spent in print, from 1934 until the printing plates were corrected.
What it doesn't mean
No — that's a mountweazel, a deliberate fake. Dord was an accident: a misread slip that passed the pronunciation editor, the etymologist and the proofreader.
Merriam-Webster calls dord its only ghost word. Entries normally need substantial evidence of use in published, edited text; dord had none.
What it really means
Most entries in this series are words whose meaning is disputed. Dord is different. It's a word with no meaning at all, because nobody ever used it. It existed only inside a dictionary.
In 1934, Merriam-Webster published Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, a huge book its own staff call "W2". On page 771, between Dorcopsis (a small kangaroo) and doré (golden), sat this:
dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Density.
There was no etymology and no example of the word in use, because there were none to give.
Here's how it happened. In 1931 the chemistry editor, Austin M. Patterson, sent in a slip adding density to the list of things the letter D abbreviates: D or d, capital or lower case. Headwords on slips were typed with spaces between the letters, to leave room for stress marks. So "D or d" looked like "D o r d", a single word with a missing space. Someone underlined all four letters as a headword, the pronunciation editor added a pronunciation, and the slip sailed through.
In February 1939, an editor noticed that dord had no etymology and went looking. The trail led back to Patterson's slip. A correction was ordered as urgent, though Merriam-Webster says it wasn't finally made until 1947. Philip Babcock Gove, who later edited Webster's Third, told the story in American Speech in 1954, and added that it was probably a pity: why shouldn't dord mean density?
Merriam-Webster still calls dord its only ghost word. It's a fitting exhibit for a site called 404: a dictionary entry that pointed at nothing.
Where it comes from
- 31 July 1931
Chemistry editor Austin M. Patterson sends a slip reading 'D or d, cont./density' — density as one more meaning of the abbreviation D (Wikipedia, from Gove's account).
- 1934
Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prints 'dord, n. Physics & Chem. Density' on page 771.
- 28 February 1939
An editor notices dord has no etymology, investigates, and orders an urgent correction.
- 1947
The change is finally made in the printing plates, according to Merriam-Webster (Wikipedia notes some copies from 1940 already lack it).
- 1954
Philip Babcock Gove, later editor of Webster's Third, tells the story in the journal American Speech.
In real life
- The quiz question was simple — define 'dord' — and the only right answer was 'nothing; it's a mistake'.
- She uses the story of dord on her proofreading course: if a word has no history, ask why.
- His crossword setter friend swears he'll get dord into a puzzle one day, as a joke for lexicographers.
Questions
Q01What does dord mean?
Nothing. It appeared in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1934), defined as 'density' in physics and chemistry, but the word was never used by anyone. It came from a slip reading 'D or d' — abbreviations for density — that was misread as a single word.
Q02How was dord discovered?
In 1939 an editor noticed that dord had no etymology, which was unusual, and traced it back to the original slip. A correction was ordered as urgent, but Merriam-Webster says it wasn't finally made until 1947.
Q03Why didn't anyone catch it?
Headword slips were typed with spaces between letters, so 'D or d' looked like 'D o r d'. Merriam-Webster says it got past the pronunciation editor, the etymologist and the proofreader — and 'we'll never know' how.
Q04What is a ghost word?
A word that exists only because of an error — a misprint, a misreading or a copying mistake — and was never actually used. The term was coined by the scholar W. W. Skeat in 1886.
Sources
- 'Dord': A Ghost Word — Merriam-Webster.
- Dord — Wikipedia (citing Gove, American Speech, 1954).
- A Brief History of 'Dord' — Smithsonian Magazine.