Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Verbal legerdemain; a playing with words, as by passing from one meaning of them to another.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare Verbal legerdemain; a playing with words.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun rare Skill or cleverness in the coining of new words
  • noun A skillfully or cleverly coined new word.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek λόγος (logos, "word") + Δαίδαλος (Daidalos, "Daedalus, a skilled craftsman of Ancient Greek mythology") + -y.

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Examples

  • Although Time's editors were not in every instance necessarily responsible for the logodaedaly ascribed to them: the magazine served as the medium through which these coinages became known to millions.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XX No 1 1991

Comments

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  • "playing with words", nothing people on Wordie would like, as evidenced by the only 2 lists which it appears on.

    November 8, 2007

  • "logodaedalus (Gk logos, 'word' + daedal, from Daedalus the mythical artist, thus) An artificer in words (e.g., a poet). Logodaedaly is verbal legerdemain.", J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (Blackwell; 1998), p. 477.

    February 9, 2008

  • Arbitrary or capricious coinage of words.

    May 12, 2008

  • Log`o`daed´a`ly

    n. 1. Verbal legerdemain; a playing with words.

    Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

    logodaedaly

    Rare. a cunning with words; verbal legerdemain. Also logodaedalus.

    July 29, 2009