Neologisms: words invented long ago by writers and used daily by us

Words have always been the writers’ armor. Pop stars have their dance moves, actors their looks, painters their style, businessmen their brands. And authors? Well, they have words. Some writers tend to use certain words statistically more often than their colleagues. Others are really into making up new words that are later to be added to dictionaries.

Neologism is ​​a newly coined word, usage, or expression. It is one thing to create a new word or catchphrase and quite another for one of your lexical offspring to find acceptance. There’re so many words that we can find only in certain books, while others enter the wider language. Such basic words like nerd, feminist, freelance, or meme were invented by famous authors. And there are many more!

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s written vocabulary significantly surpassed a word stock of an average Renaissance resident and included hundreds of neologisms. He invented roughly 1700 words that were added to the dictionary. Some of them only appeared once or twice in his plays, but others — like bump, hurry, critical, addiction and road — are essential parts of our standard vocabulary today. He also moved beyond words and created a host of new phrases. All that glitters is not gold, so-so, knock-knock! who’s there?, heart of gold and so many phrases we use daily saw the light of day because of Shakespeare.

Charles Dickens

It’s hard to believe but such a basic word as boredom was first used by Dickens in his “Bleak House”. Dickens has been experimenting with existing words transforming them into new ones. That’s how we got words boredom and rampage. Other common words coined by Dickens include the creeps, cheesiness, doormat, flummox, and butterfingers.

Lewis Carroll

Thinking of Carroll we usually recall everything bizarre and fantastic. He was a master of unique worlds, and, perhaps, words. His favorite technique, known as “portmanteau words”, was based on blending two words. That’s how frumious (fuming+furious), chortle (chuckle+snort), frabjous (fabulous+joyous), and burble (bleat, murmur + warble) were born. Carroll is also a father to words like galumph, Bandersnatch, slithy, and others.

Sir Walter Scott

Scott’s style was mostly based not on the invention itself but on introducing into the English language words and phrases from old songs and tales. He also used a lot of words of German, Norse, and of course Scottish origin. Freelance, one of the most common in the Covid-times world word, owes its meaning to Scott. He coined it in “Ivanhoe” in 1820. Scott’s freelancers were mercenaries who offered their loyalty and arms for a fee. Scott was also the one who popularized such words and phrases as coven, caught red-handed, cold shoulder, go berserk, blood is thicker than water, and others.

Alexandre Dumas (fils)/(son)

In his 1872 “L’Homme-femme”, Dumas (fils) first used a term féministe, translated as “feminist”. This word refers to a person who advocates the rights of women — social, political, and every other kind — as equal to those of men.