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Recently I have found that words such as hobbit, quidditch even Khaleesi are used in the everyday language when not referring to the books and films they were invented for in the first place. Can they be considered as neologisms or just nonsensical words used from time to time?

I base my question on this lesson on TED,

and the fact that I found out that quidditch already entered dictionary.

Ireth Tasartir
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  • Interesting question. In a general sense, unlike French, there is no governing body dictating what is or is not English, so there's no bright line a word can cross to be considered "an official English word". On the other hand, if there's any kind of threshold to be crossed, it's being listed in a reputable dictionary. So I guess if quidditch is in the Oxford dictionary (and particularly if it's in the OED, rather than just the ODO), we can consider it a "real word". Though descriptivist trends in linguistics and market dynamics have rendered dictionaries more liberal than in the past. – Dan Bron May 04 '15 at 11:14
  • Does this mean that neologism can be any word used by greater population and not just the one that is officially in the dictionaries? Is there a defined line between words which are neologisms and those that are not, since the word defined in the dictionaries as a neologisms 5 years ago for example now became old? – Ireth Tasartir May 04 '15 at 11:24
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    It should be noted that at least quidditch and hobbit are not words in constructed languages. They are both neologisms coined in and for English (hobbit is hardly even a neologism: it has an actual etymology back to Old English holbytla_—admittedly a word created by Tolkien, but nonetheless one that employs real Old English words). The fact that they were originally created for a narrow context (here a fictional work) does not preclude them from being neologisms; words like _hyperspace and warp speed also first appeared in specific works of fiction. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 04 '15 at 11:24
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    A neologism is, in its broadest application, a "new word" that has been added to the language. That covers everything that creeps in by whatever means, and refers to whatever words people are using in their speech. – Robusto May 04 '15 at 11:25
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    @DanBron: It's important to remember that dictionaries are a trailing indicator of usage, not the originator of same. Language is how people talk, not what they can look up. – Robusto May 04 '15 at 11:29
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    So, if I, for example, invent a word and a small group of my friends begins to use that word, does it mean that it is considered a neologism? – Ireth Tasartir May 04 '15 at 11:33
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    @Robusto Yes, agreed: that was the thrust of my original comment. Words are what people use to communicate, and being listed in a dictionary is strong evidence that a lot of people have used a word, for a meaningful amount of time. Though, as I said, in recent decades the figures which dictionaries consider "a lot" and "meaningful amount" have trended downwards, so it's become easier to get listed in a dictionary than before (so being listed in a dictionary is weaker evidence than it used to be). – Dan Bron May 04 '15 at 11:33
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    @Kathy, I think it's a question of degree. If only you and your friends use a term, it's a neologism within that scope: so you could not refer to it as a neologism of the English language, but only of the idiosyncratic speech patterns in your private circle. That's not to say it couldn't rise to language-wide prominence. That's what "coining" a word is all about. – Robusto May 04 '15 at 11:34
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    @Kathy Yes. If you coin a word, it’s a neologism. If only you and your friends use it, it’s a neologism with very limited scope. If it starts to become popular, gaining usage in particular pockets of society, it becomes a more general neologism. If it catches on and enters common usage all over the Anglosphere, it arguably stops being a neologism and transitions to just being a word. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 04 '15 at 11:35
  • @Kathy Neologism just means "new word", it doesn't speak to legitimacy in any way. In recent decades the trend in linguistics has been to approach language from a descriptivist perspective, so what you're going to find here (a site full of linguists and people who like linguistics) is resistance to or outright rejection of the label "legitimate". The prevailing philosophy is "words are what people use the communicate". – Dan Bron May 04 '15 at 11:36
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    I think we're talking about "angelsontheheadofapinism". – Hot Licks May 04 '15 at 11:36
  • That means that words from aforementioned constructed languages (Elvish, Dothraki, Navi and also words from Harry Potter and other languages from LOR) can become neologisms and therefore real words (because everybody who watched these movies knows the meaning of the words)? And the most importantly, we can speak of them as neologisms in our lexicology research for example? – Ireth Tasartir May 04 '15 at 11:49
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    @Kathy I think you're still conflating the ideas of "neologism" and "legitimacy"; that is, what you really want to know is "When is a strong of sounds or letters someone has strung together considered a real word?". What all the commenters here have been saying to you is: forget that question. It is meaningless. No answer can be supplied. Or, if you really want an answer: "always and never". – Dan Bron May 04 '15 at 11:53
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    Words from Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki, Na’vi, etc. are arguably not neologisms, but simple loan words, in the same way that pajama is not a neologism in English, but a loan word from Urdu/Hindi (who got it from Persian where, at some point a long time ago, it was presumably a neologism). Harry Potter words are neologisms, because they’re coined in English and abide by English phonotactics, morphology, etc. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 04 '15 at 11:55
  • @DanBron, I just wanted to make sure lead by Shakespeare who coined some new words for the purposes of his plays which were eventually accepted as common ones nowadays. I know that we cannot predict what would be accepted in a few years from now, but still there are some of the words coined by the writers for the same purpose that had already become accepted. I just wasn't sure of the difference between these languages. Thank you all. – Ireth Tasartir May 04 '15 at 12:05
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    @JanusBahsJacquet Tolkien never knew for sure where he pulled hobbit out from; the OE derivation is (he thought) his own invention. Nonetheless, the word was known in certain parts of 19th century England, as evidenced by its appearance in folklorist James Hardy’s Denham Tracts of the 1850s. We don’t think Tolkien ever read those, but we don’t know for sure. See here. Hobbit is only one of over a dozen hob- words listed, and we don’t know whether Hardy just “made them up”. Shakespeare uses Hobbididence in King Lear. It seems hob- words were in the Zeitgeist. – tchrist May 04 '15 at 12:20
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    From Tolkien you should probably look more at words like mithril (“true-silver” < MITH for “grey” in Sindarin, a conlang, and now in the OED) than at resurrected palaeogisms put to new uses like hobbit, mathom, dwimmerlaik. Even the Great Smials are a repurposing of bits of OE, just as were Smaug and Sméagol, and from the same root. – tchrist May 04 '15 at 12:24
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    @tchrist Oh, I never knew that! Interesting. Though it still seems to me that Tolkien’s hobbit word (derived in a strictly theoretical manner from an Old English holbytla that he himself invented) is possibly not even the same word as the ‘real’ hobbit word that was in use in the 19th century. Still, neat coincidence. Also interesting that mithril is in the OED. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 04 '15 at 12:29
  • Neologism: "a newly coined term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been accepted into mainstream language". Any term, word or phrase that fits this definition is, by definition, a neologism. – RegDwigнt May 04 '15 at 14:47

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Neologism is a fascinating subject of new words and new meanings for existing words:

: a new word or expression or a new meaning of a word

Merriam-Webster

The subject is full of vagaries and ambiguities. In 1859, James Hardy published the writing's of Michael Aislabie Denham in The Denham Tracts, which included a long list of supernatural creatures including hobbits:

What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, [items omitted] ... redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, [items omitted] ... and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost.

Etymonline.com emphasis mine

Obviously, hobgoblins gained more traction than hobbits. Interestingly enough, the word hobbit was also used as a measurement at the time, as mentioned in a tabulated list of produce in the 1853 publication of The Sessional Papers Printed By Order of the House of Lords:

To value of potatoes, consumed by the paupers and officers of the St. Asaph Union Workhouse, being the produce of the garden (cultivated by the boys), containing about 1J acre, during the year ending 21th December 1852
Potatoes in store
Decayed potatoes, about 8 hobbits, at 7s. 6d.
Swedes in store
Cabbage in the garden

Emphasis mine

This usage is confirmed in Francis Hilliard's The Law of Sales of Personal Property in 1841, which also foreshadowed the demise of the hobbit in favor of the bushel:

So where a statute imposed a penalty for buying or selling corn by any other measure than the Winchester bushel; it was held that no action would lie for the non-delivery of two hobbits of barley.

Emphasis mine

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word hobbit--with all of its fictional etymology--in 1955 to denote the fictional characters of his fantasy. But the word had already been introduced into the English language, and its common usage had already been laid to rest. It is quite hard to believe that such an accomplished scholar of words had no inkling of this history, but whether he realized it or not, both the agricultural and spooky connotations of hobbit served his purposes in defining these characters and their place in the story. Although hobbit was not a new word per se, he does get credit for expanding the use of the word hobbit and making it popular once more, which is within the meaning of neologism:

a new meaning of a word

Like hobbit, quidditch and Khaleesi are used commonly, and even included in general references, but none of them are considered nonsense words, a designation reserved for abracadabra, razzmatazz, twaddle and such. Quidditch was a meaningful expression developed in the context of modern English literature, so it seems quite appropriate to call it a neologism. Technically, Hobbit and Khaleesi were borrowed from elaborate fictional languages, but these languages were designed for novels in the context of modern English literature, so it seems quite appropriate to call them neologisms as well.

Communication value establishes the legitimacy of new words and new meanings. I have younger twin sisters who developed their own elaborate language to communicate to each other as toddlers. They talked to the rest of us in their limited English, but we would hear them hiding in a closet under the steps, talking to each other in a language we could not understand. It was gibberish to us, but clearly they were using real words and real syntax to communicate with each other.

Eventually, my mother came to understand a few of their words, and introduced them into our family conversations. Those words meant nothing to other families, but they became real words in our family dialect. One of their private words was geila, which we interpreted as monster. To my lasting shame, whenever I wanted to torture my little sisters I would just snarl, "Geila get ya!" to send them scurrying in terror.

Decades after the twins grew up and abandoned their Cryptophasia, some of their words still have communication value for our extended family. We wouldn't expect to find them in a dictionary, and if we had any reason to use them in public, we would provide a clear explanation of the meaning we intend, but I have unleashed geila on the English language. I wonder, what kind of damage can that monster do?

Small groups of people routinely add words and change the meaning of words for their own purposes. The more broadly those new words and meanings are accepted into the common language, the more valuable they become as communication tools. Dictionaries and other general references offer an objective measure of the communication value of new and old words alike.

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