Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mountweazel.

Examples

  • Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Sneaking storytelling by mountweazel

    Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Sneaking storytelling by mountweazel 2009

  • Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Sneaking storytelling by mountweazel:

    Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Sneaking storytelling by mountweazel 2009

  • "The New Oxford American Dictionary" even fessed up to a recent mountweazel: "esquivalience," meaning "the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities." esquivalience, and no matter what our beloved Snopes might say, we respectfully choose to retain ghost words like Copyright Easter Eggs - an overview of copyright traps on maps, with some notable examples.

    The Spark of Yahoo! 2009

  • "The New Oxford American Dictionary" even fessed up to a recent mountweazel: "esquivalience," meaning "the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities." esquivalience, and no matter what our beloved Snopes might say, we respectfully choose to retain ghost words like Copyright Easter Eggs - an overview of copyright traps on maps, with some notable examples.

    The Spark of Yahoo! 2009

  • Dictionary "even fessed up to a recent mountweazel:" esquivalience, "meaning" the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities. "esquivalience, and no matter what our beloved Snopes might say, we respectfully choose to retain ghost words like

    The Spark of Yahoo! 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • a fake word or name invented by reference-book editors to trap plagiarists. It comes from Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, whose (fake) entry in an edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia was a triumph of the form. (“Mountweazel�? died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.)

    see esquivalience

    October 28, 2007

  • Sionnach, I've heard that current mapmakers have a similar mechanism to avoid plagiarists--planting a false "street" somewhere on a local map.

    October 29, 2007

  • It must have been tough going through life with a name like Mountweazel.

    October 29, 2007

  • rt, we commissioned a designer to do street maps for a guide book I co-wrote. Yep, false streets were in. In one case she put a curve in a street that wasn't there in real life.

    July 18, 2008

  • Our Tom Tom must have been using one of those mountweazels when it dragged us through the woods for miles on an unpaved road in the Laurel Mountains last weekend. I'll refer to those harrowing hours forevermore as Mountweazel's Revenge.

    July 18, 2008

  • Thanks for the confirmation, bilby. You'd think they could come up with a better way to avoid plagiarism than sending us all down the wrong path.

    Dontcry, you must add that phrase to your Wordie vocabulary immediately! :-)

    July 24, 2008

  • Done rt!

    July 24, 2008

  • I don't know who created the persian bird but I know where the definition came from: And among the teachings of His Holiness Bahá'u'lláh is the equality of women and men. The world of humanity has two wings --  30  one is woman and the other man. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible. Not until the world of woman becomes equal to the world of man in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be.

    (Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 29)

    Both Abdu'l-Baha and his father Baha'u'llah were born in Persia.

    July 20, 2010

  • so is this synonymous with nihilartikel?

    August 21, 2013