paleologism
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
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[edit] Etymology
Derived from Greek paleós, meaning "old", and patterned after “‘neologism’”.
[edit] Noun
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Singular |
Plural |
paleologism (plural paleologisms)
- A word or phrase that was coined in the distant past, often now obscure and perhaps having a definition or implication different from that of a more recent usage.
- 1964, Charles William Wahl, New Dimensions in Psychosomatic Medicine [1], page 41:
- Another is the paleologism of pars pro toto in which a part of an organ or function can symbolize the whole organ or concept; eg, the stomach may be the locus of difficulty with a patient with a history of frustrated dependency needs because of its association with the process of being fed and loved by the mother.
- 1995, John Llewelyn, Emmanuel Levinas: The Genealogy of Ethics [2], ISBN 0415107296, page 163:
- Levinas seems to be offering new words or newly burnished words for old, those apparent semantic neologisms are more like pre-semantic paleologisms.
- 2006, Philippe Roger as translated by Sharon Bowman, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism [3], ISBN 0226723682, page 252:
- The word trust is in no way a neologism. On the contrary, it is a kind of paleologism, a primitive signifier, "a word from a barbarian time."
