Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A word or form that occurs only once in the recorded corpus of a given language.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
word occurring only once in a givencorpus .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a word with a special meaning used for a special occasion
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Greek : hapax, once + legomenon, neuter sing. passive participle of legein, to count, say.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον ("(something) said only once").
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Examples
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seanahan commented on the word hapax legomenon
I had a professor who insisted we know the plural, hapax legomena
December 2, 2006
wolfson commented on the word hapax legomenon
How disappointing that hapax legomenon occurs in multiple lists.
December 10, 2006
stpeter commented on the word hapax legomenon
Those of us who are on a first-name basis just call this one hapax. :-)
December 10, 2006
akmed13 commented on the word hapax legomenon
I found negromancer, presumably black magician, in the Burton translation of the Arabian Nights. Looked it up in the 2nd edition of OED & found it was listed as having occurred only once -- in Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights!
September 18, 2007
sionnach commented on the word hapax legomenon
hapax legomenon, the googlewhack of ancient texts.
October 8, 2007
bilby commented on the word hapax legomenon
Beautiful comment by wolfson. Wherever you are, we need you back.
December 25, 2007
shadytrees commented on the word hapax legomenon
Obligatory Dinosaur Comics link.
March 25, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word hapax legomenon
perhaps more properly named happenstance legomenon
April 19, 2009
ramsler commented on the word hapax legomenon
Your definition is too restrictive. hapex legomena are those word in a frequency count of any body of text which appear only once. The inference is that one cannot predict anything about their overall frequency based on a single occurrence.
June 21, 2009
garyth123 commented on the word hapax legomenon
I shall say this only once...
September 26, 2009
myroblyte commented on the word hapax legomenon
I learned this word from Geoff Nunberg
March 31, 2010