Did You Know These Rare Linguistic Terms?
Surprising Gems from the World of Language
Even if you're a seasoned language nerd or a trained linguist, chances are you haven't heard all of these. Impress your colleagues, amuse your students, or just nerd out in peace.
1. Apocope
Omission of the final sound or syllable in a word.
Example: photo from photograph
2. Epenthesis
Inserting a sound within a word.
Example: Saying ath-e-lete instead of athlete
3. Eggcorn
A misheard word or phrase that sounds logical but is incorrect.
Example: old-timer’s disease for Alzheimer’s disease
4. Mondegreen
A misinterpreted lyric or phrase.
Example: “Sweet dreams are made of cheese”
5. Rebracketing
Changing word boundaries over time.
Example: a napron becoming an apron
6. Phonaestheme
A sound cluster with a consistent meaning.
Example: gl- in glow, glimmer, gleam
7. Anacoluthon
A sentence that changes direction mid-way.
Example: “If you think I—well, never mind.”
8. Tmesis
Inserting a word for emphasis.
Example: abso-bloody-lutely
9. Hapax Legomenon
A word that appears only once in a corpus.
Example: Flother (an Old English word for snowflake)
10. Capitonym
A word that changes meaning when capitalized.
Example: March (month) vs march (walk)
11. Crasis
Merging vowels across words.
Example: Portuguese de + o = do
12. Etymon
The original root of a word.
Example: Latin mater is the etymon of mother
13. Glottalization
Using a glottal stop in pronunciation.
Example: Butter pronounced bu’er in some UK dialects
14. Lexical Gap
A concept without a word in a language.
Example: No English word for the feeling of ‘missing someone while they're still with you’
15. Polysemy
One word with several related meanings.
Example: Head of a person, company, or table
16. Metalanguage
Language used to talk about language.
Example: Terms like “noun,” “verb,” or “subject”
17. Reduplication
Repeating sounds or words for effect.
Example: teeny-weeny, bye-bye
18. Grammaticalization
Words turning into grammar over time.
Example: going to → gonna
19. Echolalia
Repeating what others say, often involuntarily.
Common in child language development and some disorders.
20. Nonce Word
A word invented for one-time use.
Example: unputdownable
Bonus Terms (Linguist-Only Easter Eggs)
- Clitic – A grammatically independent word that’s phonologically dependent (e.g., 's in it’s).
- Backformation – Creating a new word by removing an affix (edit from editor).
- Retronym – A term created to distinguish something from its newer form (acoustic guitar after electric guitar came around).
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