hapax legomenon

See also: Hapaxlegomenon, Hapax Legomenon, and hápax legómenon

English

WOTD – 14 April 2012, 14 April 2013, 14 April 2014, 14 April 2015

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (hápax legómenon, “(something) said only once”), from ἅπαξ (hápax, “once”) and λεγόμενον (legómenon), passive participle of λέγω (légō, “say”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɒ.məˌnɒn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɑ.məˌnɑn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒmənɒn
• Hyphenation: ha‧pax le‧go‧me‧non

Noun

hapax legomenon (plural hapax legomena or (rare) hapax legomenons)

1. (linguistics) A word occurring only once in a given corpus.

   Synonym: hapax

   Coordinate terms: googlewhack, nonce word, sui generis

   • 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 occurrences are in 2 Cor.

   • [2000, Steven Pinker, Words and Rules, →ISBN, 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.

   • 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎^[1], page 5:

     The research discovered 510 different terms. Of these 164 (approximately 32%) were hapax legomena (i.e., there was only once instance in the data), while 107 (approximately 21%) were attested by 10 or more citations.

Usage notes

• The corpus in question is generally implied by context. Commonly it will be one of: 1) A known corpus of a given language, 2) The works of a given author, 3) A particular work 4) A book of the Bible.

Related terms

• dis legomenon
• tris legomenon
• tetrakis legomenon

Translations

word occurring only once — see also hapax

• Arabic: لَفْظ فَرِيد m (lafẓ farīd), كَلِمَة وَحِيدَة f (kalima(t) waḥīda), لَفْظَة مُفْرَدَة f (lafẓa(t) mufrada), شَاهِد أُحَادِيّ m (šāhid ʔuḥādiyy)
• Catalan: hàpax (ca) m, hàpax legòmenon (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 孤詞 / 孤词

• Czech: hapax legomenon (cs) n
• Dutch: hapax legomenon m, hapax (nl) m
• Esperanto: hapakso
• Finnish: hapax legomenon (fi)
• French: hapax legomenon (fr) m, hapax (fr) m
• Galician: hapax legomenon
• German: Hapaxlegomenon (de) n, Hapax Legomenon (de) n, Hapax legomenon (de) n, hapax Legomenon n, hapax legomenon (de) n
• Greek: άπαξ λεγόμενο n (ápax legómeno)
• Hebrew: מִלָּה יְחִידָאִית (he) f (milá yeḥidaít)
• Hungarian: hapax legomenon (hu)
• Indonesian: hapax legomena
• Persian: تکبار واژه (takbâr vâže)
• Polish: hapaks legomenon (pl) m inan
• Portuguese: hápax (pt) m
• Russian: гапакс (ru) m (gapaks)
• Serbo-Croatian: jednokratnica f
• Slovak: hapax legomenon n
• Spanish: legomena hápax m, hápax legómenon m
• Swedish: hapax legomenon n, hapax n

See also

• accidental gap

Further reading

• hapax legomenon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:Hapax legomena by language

German

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (hápax legómenon). See English hapax legomenon.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌhapaks leˈɡoːmenɔn/

Noun

hapax legomenon n (strong, genitive hapax legomenon, plural hapax legomena)

1. alternative letter-case form of Hapax Legomenon
   • 1994, Jost Gippert, (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     "Ein altgeorgisches hapax legomenon"

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1848, Ludwig Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christentums - Zweiter Teil.:

     So entstehen die Werke des Genies immer nur unter ganz besondern, nur einmal so zusammentreffenden Innern und äußern Bedingungen; sie sind hapax legomena. »Einmal ist alles Wahre nur.«

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1873, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (transl. by Carl Schaarschmidt), Neue Abhandlungen über den menschlichen Verstand - Viertes Buch. Von der Erkenntnis

     Dies muß sich dann ganz ebenso verhalten, als ob das von ihnen Bemerkte zur Zahl der hapax legomena gehörte, dessen, was nur einmal gesagt worden ist, worüber Menagius ein Buch verfassen wollte.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Hungarian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈhɒpɒkslɛɡomɛnon]
• Hyphenation: ha‧pax le‧go‧me‧non

Noun

hapax legomenon (plural hapax legomenonok)

1. hapax legomenon
   • 2014, László Grétsy, Anyanyelvi séták: Szavaink, neveink és szólásaink születése, életútja, titkokkal teli világa, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó, →ISBN, page 34:

     Ahogy meghallottam ezt a naiv gyermeki szóalkotást, elhatároztam, hogy erről írni fogok. Nem annyira magáról a szóról, amely gyönyörűen megmutatja, hogy a kisgyerek hogyan keres és talál is fogódzókat egy általa még nem ismert, többnyire idegen szónak a megértéséhez (pici + hó + pata), hanem inkább erről a témáról, erről az ösztönös kreativitásról s annak nem csupán egyedi, egyszeri példányairól, hapax legomenonjairól, hanem többé-kevésbé társadalmivá is vált alkotásairól.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Declension

Inflection (stem in -o-, back harmony)

	singular	plural
nominative	hapax legomenon	hapax legomenonok
accusative	hapax legomenont	hapax legomenonokat
dative	hapax legomenonnak	hapax legomenonoknak
instrumental	hapax legomenonnal	hapax legomenonokkal
causal-final	hapax legomenonért	hapax legomenonokért
translative	hapax legomenonná	hapax legomenonokká
terminative	hapax legomenonig	hapax legomenonokig
essive-formal	hapax legomenonként	hapax legomenonokként
essive-modal	—	—
inessive	hapax legomenonban	hapax legomenonokban
superessive	hapax legomenonon	hapax legomenonokon
adessive	hapax legomenonnál	hapax legomenonoknál
illative	hapax legomenonba	hapax legomenonokba
sublative	hapax legomenonra	hapax legomenonokra
allative	hapax legomenonhoz	hapax legomenonokhoz
elative	hapax legomenonból	hapax legomenonokból
delative	hapax legomenonról	hapax legomenonokról
ablative	hapax legomenontól	hapax legomenonoktól
non-attributive possessive – singular	hapax legomenoné	hapax legomenonoké
non-attributive possessive – plural	hapax legomenonéi	hapax legomenonokéi

Possessive forms of hapax legomenon

possessor	single possession	multiple possessions
1st person sing.	hapax legomenonom	hapax legomenonjaim
2nd person sing.	hapax legomenonod	hapax legomenonjaid
3rd person sing.	hapax legomenonja	hapax legomenonjai
1st person plural	hapax legomenonunk	hapax legomenonjaink
2nd person plural	hapax legomenonotok	hapax legomenonjaitok
3rd person plural	hapax legomenonjuk	hapax legomenonjaik

Spanish

Noun

hapax legomenon m (uncountable)

1. alternative form of hápax legómenon