History Main / Neologism

** Named after googol, which is also a neologism, and means 1.0 * 10^100, a one followed by a hundred zeroes and was invented by a 9 year old boy. TheOtherWiki has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol details]].

* Creator/BuckminsterFuller was so prone to creating these that even TheOtherWiki felt the need to include [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Language_and_neologisms a fairly substantial section about it]] in his article.

* ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'': 'Grok': Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed, to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science, and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man. Author Creator/RobertAHeinlein also coined 'Literature/{{waldo}}' as a term for remotely controlled robotic arms in a short story of the same name. Specifically, a "waldo" is a device which is controlled by moving a model of the device; usually a pair of robotic hands that are controlled by sensors in a pair of gloves. This allows things to be worked on remotely or for someone to control a much larger/smaller version of their own hands.

* The movements of Spinfer and Mawk in WelkinWeasels are described as "smooling". The narrator points out that this isn't a real word but it describes the action perfectly.

* Know what "dord" means? Density is represented in science by D, or alternatively by d. This was submitted to Webster's Dictionary as, "D or d: a term used in science to mean density." Of course, someone misread it, and for decades "dord" was in the dictionary.

* During prohibition, a magazine held a contest to create a word for a person who illegally drank alcohol. Mr Henry Irving Dale and Miss Kate L. Butler both send in the winning entry, ''scofflaw'', and thus shared the $200 prize. This word is still used today for anyone who ignores a minor law.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' gave us the droid, a shortened form of android even though it applies to all autonomous robotic creatures in the ''Star Wars'' universe, not just those that resemble humanoids.

** According to ''Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Creator/NeilGaiman, it was directly swiped from Adams's English teacher, although Adams later aknowledged that ''he'' may have swiped it from Jennings. Ironically, it was then swiped from Adams and Lloyd by an ad agency under the name "Oxtail English Dictionary" - the title Lloyd came up with when using them as space fillers in the ''NotTheNineOClockNews'' calendar prior to making them a book.

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* Music/SteveMiller spoke of the "Pompatus of Love" in "The Joker" and the earlier, less well-known song "Enter Maurice." This word, spelled "pompitous" in the printed lyrics of "Enter Maurice," was a corruption of "puppetutes" (a {{portmanteau}} of "puppet" and "prostitutes"), which was used in the Medallions' 1954 hit "The Letter."
* Music/{{Unhalfbricking}}, the title of Music/FairportConvention's third album, came about in the course of a word game the band were playing to pass the time between gigs. The idea was for each player in turn to add one letter at either end of a word, in such a way that the resulting fragment could be the beginning of a real dictionary word but not such a word itself.
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* The narrator of Dostoevsky's novel ''Demons'' coins the term "Shigalyovism" (''"Shigalyovschina"'', in Russian), describing the ideology of a minor character. A member of the town's secret cadre of nihilists, who range from laughable idiots to terrifying psychopaths, Shigalyov argues that [[PoweredByAForsakenChild it is legitimate to subject 90% of humanity to abject slavery in order that the remaining 10% may enjoy a utopian paradise]]. The term came into common usage in Russia during the Stalinist era, for obvious reasons.

* Harold Ramis notes on the ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' commentary track, "I take full credit for turning 'slime' into a verb."

* Edward Lear and 'runcible'... whose definition he never hinted at. 'Runcible spoon' from "The Owl and the Pussycat" has been adopted as a phrase, but no one can agree on whether a runcible spoon is a spork, a spork with a knife edge on the handle, or some other kind of cool spoon. None of these can be right anyway, since he used 'runcible' to modify other nouns, so whatever it meant isn't spoon-exclusive.

* The [[VideoGame/DeadlyRoomsOfDeath DROD]] series extends "once, twice, thrice" as follows: quarce, quince, sence, septence, octence, novence. All of these combine Latin numeric prefixes with the "-ce" ending of the first three. They have begun to show up in other places outside the series.

* The [[DeadlyRoomsOfDeath DROD]] series extends "once, twice, thrice" as follows: quarce, quince, sence, septence, octence, novence. All of these combine Latin numeric prefixes with the "-ce" ending of the first three. They have begun to show up in other places outside the series.

* Woot. Not as famous as Google, but it has found its way into a number of dictionaries. WOOT [[FunWithAcronyms purportedly stands for]] We Own the Other Team. Alternatively, it's a portmanteau of "Wow, loot!"

* Much like the "flange of baboons" example above, [=RPGMP3=] is attempting to popularize "shower" as the collective term for a group of bastards. Perhaps after this exchange in an episode of ''Series/FatherTed''? ("Shower" is common Irish slang.)
-->'''Father Ted:''' What was it he used to say about the needy? He had a term for them...\\
'''Father Dougal:''' A shower of bastards.
* Website/{{Twitter}}: "Tweet". There's currently a battle of wills going on at the ''New York Times'' to decide whether to use it as a verb in stories referring to Twitter, or just go on saying that someone "said on their Twitter account" blah blah blah. Just as long as they don't use "twat" for the past tense form. Unless they do it [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar intentionally]]. See also the question "how many tweets make a twat?" which only really works in British English.... On the other hand, "Tweet" has an older meaning as an onomatopoeia for a weak chirping sound, so it's not exactly a new word.

* James Fenimore Cooper is generally credited with either inventing or widely popularizing the name "Cora" in his novel ''TheLastOfTheMohicans.''

* SteveMiller spoke of the "Pompatus of Love" in "The Joker" and the earlier, less well-known song "Enter Maurice." This word, spelled "pompitous" in the printed lyrics of "Enter Maurice," was a corruption of "puppetutes" (a {{portmanteau}} of "puppet" and "prostitutes"), which was used in the Medallions' 1954 hit "The Letter."

** Acording to the Oxford English Dictionary he also coined "positronic" as an analogue to "electronic" (as in the "positronic brains" of his robots) and "psychohistory", in the usage of predicting the future through mathmatics and the reactions of human masses. You would have to read his books to understand that last one. ( I am aware it has another use, namly the psychological history of people. He coined it as I have described it, however.)

* ''PeterPan'': Introduced the name 'Wendy', which was not a common English name before J. M. Barrie's character (it might have been an occasional shortening of the Welsh name "Gwendolyn," which is usually shortened to "Gwen" nowadays). It was derived from a toddler's inability to pronounce the letter ''R'' properly, so when she called JMB her "friendy," it became "fwendy-wendy."

* {{Google}}. [[PersonAsVerb Its usage as a verb has become so widespread that it is now in the dictionary.]]

* The term "''[[TheGrinch grinch]]''" has entered public lexicon thanks to ''WesternAnimation/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas''. The term means someone who hates a holiday (particularly Christmas), and tries to make it miserable for everybody else.

* {{Lobo}} frequently calls people "bastitches".

* Google. Its usage as a verb has become so widespread that [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome it is now in the dictionary.]]

** At the time, some scientists (among them RichardFeynman and Murray Gell-Mann of Caltech), were working on a theory that explained the way that protons, neutrons, and other hadrons as being composed of smaller particles. Feynman referred to them as "partons," since they were "parts" of the proton (and "on" being the Greek suffix meaning "thing" that can be seen in "electron," "proton," neutron," etc); but Gell-Mann objected that this was an unholy combination of Latin and Greek roots, and sought to come up with a better name. He eventually started calling them "quarks" after a line in ''Finnegan's Wake'', and it caught on. Gell-Mann was being a little weird, but you know what they say, physicists have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_quark strange]] [[IncrediblyLamePun quarks]].

** Alex also used corknut for almond, which was later used by Margaret Atwood in OryxAndCrake.

* WilliamGibson coined "{{Cyberspace}}" in a short story (incorrectly attributed to ''{{Neuromancer}}''). Gibson says that he was able to imagine it because he had absolutely no idea how computers worked; in fact, he was said to be disappointed by the real thing when he finally got around to getting a computer. "Meat puppet" was a ShoutOut to a band name. The same concept may or may not have been intended when the band was named, but Gibson definitely popularised the term.

** According to ''Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by NeilGaiman, it was directly swiped from Adams's English teacher, although Adams later aknowledged that ''he'' may have swiped it from Jennings. Ironically, it was then swiped from Adams and Lloyd by an ad agency under the name "Oxtail English Dictionary" - the title Lloyd came up with when using them as space fillers in the ''NotTheNineOClockNews'' calendar prior to making them a book.

* If you need proof that TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary (and the vocabularies of everyone around you), "{{Narm}}" (for what is technically referred to as "bathos") and the verb "[[MagnificentBastard to xanatos]]" have already left their mark on the Internet.

Not to be confused with PersonalDictionary, which is pretending existing words mean something else. Compare {{Neologizer}}, for when using a large number of these is a character trait.