Fuddland

When it’s “trepidatious”. It’s not a word.

Trepidation is a word. Trepidatory too. Even trepidant, trepidity and trepid are proper words.

But not trepidatious. Because it’s not in any dictionary yet. [Except the increasingly-unreliable dictionary.com, who prove they’re just making it up by spelling it with a c even though the root word ends -tion.]

It should be a word though. People know what it means. People use it. I even used it earlier on today. If we all use it more often, it’ll find its way into the OED faster, and we’ll all be happy. Or, at least, I will.

[What’s the word for words that aren’t yet words?]

#1

Jess | 2005 / 08 / 19 – 16:20

Neologisms.

#2

David | 2005 / 08 / 19 – 16:49

Re #1: Of course! I did think of that, but then thought it was the wrong term. I should’ve looked it up!

But trepidatious has been in usage for quite a while. It’s an old neologism. A paleologism? That’s not a word either [I just checked the OED]. Oooh, but it has a Wikipedia entry with the expected meaning, so at least one other person has used it.

So paleologism is a neologism. :)

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