hapax legomenon

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (“(something) said only once”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌhæpæks lɨˈɡɒmənɒn/

Noun

hapax legomenon (plural hapax legomena)

1. A word occurring only once in a given corpus.
   • 1999, Casey Wayne Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism: The Influence of the Principles of Orality on the Literary Structure of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, page 89, footnote,

     άγνως is a New Testament hapax legomenon. άγνός occurs two other times in Paul, both occurences are in 2 Cor.

   • 2000, Steven Pinker, Words and Rules ISBN 0-465-07269-0, page 172

     There is a lovely technical term for a word that appears once in a body of text: a hapax legomenon (plural: hapax legomena), Greek for “once said.” The term comes from philology, the study of old texts.

   • 2005, Hanna Kahana, Esther: Juxtaposition of the Septuagint Translation with the Hebrew Text, page 129, footnote,

     In our case this means that πρωτοβαθρέω is an absolute hapax legomenon, if one assumes that the occurrences of βάθρον in Isa and διαβάθρη in Sam II are the result of corruptions.

Translations

Translations

German: Hapax legomenon (de) n.

Polish: hapax legomenon (pl) n.

Usage notes

The corpus in question is generally implied by context. Commonly it will be one of:

• A known corpus of a given language
• The works of a given author
• A particular work
• A book of the Bible

Synonyms

• hapax

See also

• googlewhack
• nonce word
• sui generis