Hapax Legomenon
A word that appears only once in a whole body of text — and therefore has no second instance to check its meaning against.
Full definition of Hapax Legomenon →:: COMPARE ::
Hapax legomenonvsNeologism
The short answer
A neologism is new. A hapax is unrepeated. An ancient word appearing once in a surviving text is a hapax and the opposite of new — the two categories describe completely different problems.
Side by side
| Aspect | Hapax legomenon | Neologism |
|---|---|---|
| Concerns | Frequency in a corpus | Age |
| Can be ancient | Yes | No |
| Creates | Translation uncertainty | Usage arguments |
| Relative to | A corpus | A date |
What each one means
Neologism
A newly coined word or phrase, or an existing word given a new meaning — and the process that keeps a language from being a museum.
Full definition of Neologism →