History Main / Neologism

* It stands to reason that ''every'' word had to be made up by somebody. [[NotSoDifferent Thus all words were]] originally {{Neologism}}s.

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** Lactomangulation -- opening the "illegal" side (the one that says "open other end") on a milk carton

* Back-formation is what it is called when you make a new word by removing or replacing a suffix or prefix (or something that looks like one but isn't) from an existing word. English has a very large number of these so there can be a lot of surprises when you look what words came first. For example, many english verbs were made by removing the -tion -er or -ing ending from a noun.

* In 1995, Conan O'Brien was looking for a word to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar outwit the censors]]. He came up with the word "Crunk". Ice-T used the word several times during the broadcast. Nowadays, there's barely a rapper alive that doesn't have "crunk" in his vocabulary... and there's now even an [[CrunkCore entire genre of music]] named after it...

* 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.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov coined "robotics" and used the term "fundie" as an abbreviation for "fundamentalist" decades before it came into widespread usage. It's worth noting that Asimov coined it accidentally: he assumed somebody else had already used it, due to its logical construction.

* People with various mental/neurological conditions and brain injuries are prone to forming neologisms of their own, which are often consistent enough that families and friends learn and use them. Examples of conditions where this could happen include autism, the aphasias, schizophrenia, post-stroke or brain-injury, and the various speech/language disorders. Typical toddlers, while learning to speak, may also form neologisms.

* Done in-universe in ''Frindle''; the main character sets himself up as unique by coining the titular synonym for "pen", and the whole novel revolves around its emergence into popularity and the reluctance of adults to accept it as a proper word. At the end of the story, "frindle" becomes popular enough to be added to the English dictionary.

** According to some sources, Tolkien was under the impression that the plural was "dwarves" when writing ''Literature/TheHobbit''. Then in LOTR he used the name "Dwarrowdelf" (delving of dwarves, the translation of "Khazad-dûm" into common speech), and then in the appendices he claimed [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis as the translator]] that he [[IMeantToDoThat always meant to do that]].

See also PerfectlyCromulentWord

* As discussed on an episode of ''Series/{{QI}}'', the sketch show ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' once used "flange" as the collective noun for gorillas -- as in "a pride of lions," "a pod of dolphins," "a flange of gorillas." It was just a joke, [[CaptainObvious such as you might expect from a comedy show]], but apparently some people took it at face value and the term has been adopted by academics, but to refer to baboons. The collective noun for gorillas is congress.

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

* Lobo frequently calls people "bastitches".

* Done in-universe in ''Frindle''; the main character sets himself up as unique by coining the titular synonym for "pen", and the whole novel revolves around its emergence into popularity and the reluctance of adults to accept it as a proper word. At the end of the story, "frindle" becomes popular enough to be added to the English dictionary.
* ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'': "Horrorshow," a corruption of 'khorosho', the Russian word for 'good'. This book had an entire FutureSlang, much of it based on Russian, some of which has trickled into common use. "Ultraviolence" and "droog" are some of the more popular ones.

* ''Literature/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."

* ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'': Creator/LewisCarroll invented quite a few nonsense words and assigned most of them definitions. Some of them have become adopted as real words:
** He coined the term '{{portmanteau}}' to describe a word that is the combination of two other words (and therefore a subset of neologisms). It was already in use in English, but only as a term for a suitcase or traveling-bag.
** He was also responsible for "chortle," although the modern usage is different from the way he used it -- "a cross between a snort and a chuckle".
** "[[OffWithHisHead Vorpal]]" was adopted by would-be decapitators everywhere after Gary Gygax popularized it in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''.
* Creator/WilliamShakespeare invented numerous words and phrases during his career, "doorknob" and "eyeball" being only two of them. He also popularized the name [[TheOphelia Ophelia]], which had been invented by Jacopo Sannazaro in the 15th century. Though many words attributed to him in fact are of [[http://www.volokh.com/posts/1191875215.shtml earlier origin]], Shakespeare indeed had a gift for coining new vocabulary. He did not let such a pesky thing as the lack of a relevant word stop him.
* Karel Capek's play ''Theatre/{{RUR}}'' introduced the term "robot," meaning "indentured worker" in his native Czech, to mean an ArtificialHuman used to perform menial tasks, although these robots were biological. (According to Capek, it was his brother, Josef who suggested him the word). The term became universal in science fiction writing, and eventually came to use in the scientific mainstream to describe any machine that emulates a function performed by the human body.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov coined "robotics" and used the term "fundie" as an abbreviation for "fundamentalist" decades before it came into widespread usage.
** It's worth noting that Asimov coined it accidentally: he assumed somebody else had already used it, due to its logical construction.
* A 1530 translation of Literature/TheBible misinterpreted the name "Azazel" as "ez ozel," literally meaning "goat that departs." This eventually changed through MemeticMutation to "escape goat," then to the modern "scapegoat." So, the word scapegoat literally originated from a [[RougeAnglesOfSatin Rouge Angle Of Satin]]. Azazel is a combination of two words meaning 'goat' and 'disappear'. The Latin Vulgate translates the Hebrew as capro emissario, or 'emissary goat' or 'scapegoat'. The Greek Septuagint translates the Hebrew as 'the one carrying away (averting) evil.'
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': [[BigBrotherIsWatching Big Brother]], doublethink, {{unperson}}, doubleplusungood and others, mostly derived from {{Newspeak}}. There are plenty of other examples from the novel, but "doublespeak" is a BeamMeUpScotty.
* ''Literature/WhoCensoredRogerRabbit'', the 1981 book by Gary Wolfe, (which was the basis for the movie ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'') introduced the word "Toon" as a name for a cartoon-type character. This is also a common synonym for one's avatar or character in various role-playing games.

* The word "baticeer" was coined by Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, in the ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' books. It mean "one who trains bats" -- and it's an anagram of the name "Beatrice," who Lemony Snicket dedicates all his books to.
* ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' gave us the term "Scrooge" for a miser.
* The nonsense word "fnord" was first used in the ''[[http://principiadiscordia.com/book/1.php Principia Discordia]]'', where it represented no clear meaning or part of speech and was never presented in any sort of identifying context. ''Literature/{{Illuminatus}}'' popularized it, using it as a subliminal BrownNote. Today, it's used more as a shibboleth for Discordians and assorted fellow-travellers than anything else.
* Creator/JRRTolkien and ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' established "dwarves" as the standard plural of "dwarf" in HighFantasy; Tolkien had a valid philological reason for wanting to change the accepted spelling ("dwarfs" is a bad plural formation, and it's properly "dwarrow" from the Middle English formation). "Elves" was already the standard plural of "elf", but Tolkien ''did'' popularize the adjective form "elven" instead of the then-standard "elfin".

* The book ''Brain Droppings'' by Creator/GeorgeCarlin has a list of "Words and phrases we should have," including "pocketry = a garment's pockets," "firmth = firmness" and "unpark = drive away."
* The narrator of Dostoevsky's novel ''Literature/{{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.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' and "{{Muggle}}" -- being a fairly obvious nonsense word, it had been used by other people first, but Creator/JKRowling gave us the definition of "normal person outside of the group; outsider." The closest English equivalent is "gentile", which can refer to any outsider of a certain sec, be it a non-Jew or a non-Mormon. Of course, ethnic minorities usually have their own word for an outsider, e.g. ''goyim'' (Yiddish), ''gaijin'' (Japanese), and ''gadje'' (Romani). The fact that they all start with a "g" is a coincidence.
** The word dates back further to 1920s New Orleans slang for marijuana.

* The movements of Spinfer and Mawk in ''Literature/WelkinWeasels'' are described as "smooling". The narrator points out that this isn't a real word but it describes the action perfectly.
* The Brazilian author João Guimarães Rosa (''Literature/TheDevilToPayInTheBacklands'') is well known for using a lot of neologisms in his works, mostly of them very hard to translate, since they are all made-up to work in Portuguese.
* ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' introduced the word 'yahoo' for a stupid loutish person, 'lilliputian' to describe something very small, and the lesser used 'brobdingnagian' to describe something very large.
* The Roman poet Creator/{{Catullus}} coined the word 'basiationes' as a more decorative version of 'basia' - 'kiss', making this trope OlderThanFeudalism.
* The ''Literature/DresdenFiles'' has the eponymous Harry Dresden, resident [[TallDarkAndSnarky snarker]] and [[TheNicknamer coiner of silly names]]. "Chlorofiend" indeed... (Immediately subverted because nobody knew what a chlorofiend was, so he had to revert to plant monster.)

* James Fenimore Cooper is generally credited with either inventing or widely popularizing the name "Cora" in his novel ''Literature/TheLastOfTheMohicans.''
* The term "''[[TheGrinch grinch]]''" has entered public lexicon thanks to ''Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas''. The term means someone who hates a holiday (particularly Christmas), and tries to make it miserable for everybody else.
* "Oobleck" from Creator/DrSeuss's ''Bartholomew and the Oobleck'' is a strange gloopy material that falls from the sky when the king demands a new kind of weather. The name has since been used for a non-Newtonian fluid (i.e. strange gloopy material) that you can make in your own home.
* "Gruselett" ("Creeplet"), a nonsense poem by Christian Morgenstern. Consists almost only of made-up words that evoke a scary atmosphere. [[http://www.babelmatrix.org/works/de/Morgenstern,_Christian/Gruselett/en/32701-Scariboo Translation attempt]]
* ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'' uses a variety of real but very obscure English words to describe concepts and entities in its far-future setting with no direct equivalents in our world. One of these repurposings that has taken off in other novels and wider society is "fuligin", originally an obscure word for soot, to mean a colour that is an ultimate black, so dark that objects of its colour reflect no detectable light at all and appear as merely featureless black splotches to the human eye. It has now been applied to recently-developed real ultra-black pigments, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack Vantablack]].

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

* 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.

* The word "ansible" was coined by UrsulaKLeGuin, and has since been appropriated by a great deal of science fiction for any device which allows faster-than-light communication, including [[SubspaceAnsible right here on this site]]. (Supposedly it was a corruption of the term "answerable". Also an anagram of "lesbian", though the actual relevance of that tidbit is disputed.)