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Frequently Asked Questions
Dictionaries
Will you put the word I have invented into one of your dictionaries? |
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All of Oxford's English dictionaries aim to include primarily those words that have genuinely entered the English language. The use of a newly invented word by a single person is not sufficient to merit a dictionary entry (unless the person happens to be, for example, William Shakespeare or Jane Austen).
In previous centuries there were dictionaries in which writers listed words which they thought might be useful, even if they did not have any evidence that anyone had ever actually used them. Often these were derived from Latin or Greek words, like the 'inkhorn' terms which became fashionable in the 16th century. Only a few of the more noteworthy of these words are listed in the OED.
There is nothing to stop you using an invented word - so long as you don't mind the fact that it will not be understood and will have to be explained every time. If it genuinely fills a gap in the language, then it may well catch on among a significant section of the population. It will then have become part of the language, and if it is used in print (or can be traced, for example, in scripts or transcripts of broadcasts), it will fall within the sphere of the OED's Reading Programme. See also: AskOxford's section on new words
There are a number of genuinely invented words in the Oxford English Dictionary. As well as various terms for commercial and industrial products, they include:
- blatant (Edmund Spenser, 1596)
- blik (R.M. Hare, 1950)
- camelious (Rudyard Kipling, 1902)
- finnimbrun (Izaak Walton, 1653)
- gigman (Thomas Carlyle, 1830)
- Gondal (Emily and Anne Brontë, 1834)
- googol (Dr Kasner's 9-year-old nephew, 1940)
- grok (Robert Heinlein, 1961)
- hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937)
- od (Baron von Reichenbach, c.1850)
- panorama (R. Barker, 1789)
- pushmi-pullyu (Hugh Lofting, 1922)
- quark (M. Gell-Mann, 1964)
- runcible (Edward Lear, 1871)
- shazam (Whiz Comics, 1940)
- shmoo (Al Capp, 1948)
- slan (A.E. Van Vogt, 1940)
- spoof (Arthur Roberts, 1884)
- sukebind (Stella Gibbons, 1932)
- tracklement (Dorothy Hartley, 1954)
- vril (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1871)
and a good number of words from the works of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).
Other questions in this section: What is a dictionary?
What are people referring to when they talk about the 'Oxford Dictionary'?
Are dictionaries always in alphabetical order?
Are dictionaries really necessary?
Are lexicographers good spellers?
Are other languages besides English recorded in huge multi-volume dictionaries?
Do dictionary-makers ever make mistakes?
Do you include words used on the Internet?
How can I access OED Online?
How do you decide if a new word should go in an Oxford dictionary?
How do you decide what to include in a dictionary?
How do you know what a word means?
How has computer technology affected dictionary-making?
How have dictionaries changed over the years?
How will a dictionary look in 2050?
How will revision affect the size of the OED?
Is there an official committee which regulates the English language?
What skills and talents does a lexicographer need?
When will the Third Edition of the OED be published?
Will you put the word I have invented into the dictionary?
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