corpus linguistics Corpus linguistics is an empirical method for the study of language by way of a text corpus (plural ''corpora''). Corpora are balanced, often stratified collections of authentic, "real world", text of speech or writing that aim to represent a giv ...

, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

or an expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written record of an entire

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works but more than once in that particular work. ''Hapax legomenon'' is a

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, meaning "said once". The related terms ''dis legomenon'', ''tris legomenon'', and ''tetrakis legomenon'' respectively (, , ) refer to double, triple, or quadruple occurrences, but are far less commonly used. ''Hapax legomena'' are quite common, as predicted by Zipf's law, which states that the frequency of any word in a

corpus Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. For large corpora, about 40% to 60% of the words are ''hapax legomena'', and another 10% to 15% are ''dis legomena''. Thus, in the

Brown Corpus The Brown University Standard Corpus of Present-Day American English, better known as simply the Brown Corpus, is an electronic collection of text samples of American English, the first major structured Text_corpus, corpus of varied genres. This ...

of American English, about half of the 50,000 distinct words are ''hapax legomena'' within that corpus. ''Hapax legomenon'' refers to the appearance of a word or an expression in a body of text, not to either its origin or its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a

nonce word In linguistics, a nonce word—also called an occasionalism—is any word (lexeme), or any sequence of sounds or letters, created for a single occasion or utterance but not otherwise understood or recognized as a word in a given languag ...

, which may never be recorded, may find currency and may be widely recorded, or may appear several times in the work which

coins A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

it, and so on.

Significance

''Hapax legomena'' in ancient texts are usually difficult to decipher, since it is easier to infer meaning from multiple contexts than from just one. For example, many of the remaining undeciphered Mayan glyphs are ''hapax legomena'', and Biblical (particularly

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

; see § Hebrew) ''hapax legomena'' sometimes pose problems in translation. ''Hapax legomena'' also pose challenges in

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

. Some scholars consider ''Hapax legomena'' useful in determining the authorship of written works. P. N. Harrison, in ''The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles'' (1921) made ''hapax legomena'' popular among Bible scholars, when he argued that there are considerably more of them in the three Pastoral Epistles than in other

Pauline Epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...

. He argued that the number of ''hapax legomena'' in a putative author's corpus indicates his or her vocabulary and is characteristic of the author as an individual. Harrison's theory has faded in significance due to a number of problems raised by other scholars. For example, in 1896, W. P. Workman found the following numbers of ''hapax legomena'' in each Pauline Epistle: At first glance, the last three totals (for the Pastoral Epistles) are not out of line with the others.Workman, "The Hapax Legomena of St. Paul", '' Expository Times'', 7 (1896:418), noted i
''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', ''s.v.'' "Epistles to Timothy and Titus"
. To take account of the varying length of the epistles, Workman also calculated the average number of ''hapax legomena'' per page of the Greek text, which ranged from 3.6 to 13, as summarized in the diagram on the right. Although the Pastoral Epistles have more ''hapax legomena'' per page, Workman found the differences to be moderate in comparison to the variation among other Epistles. This was reinforced when Workman looked at several plays by

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, which showed similar variations (from 3.4 to 10.4 per page of Irving's one-volume edition), as summarized in the second diagram on the right. Apart from author identity, there are several other factors that can explain the number of ''hapax legomena'' in a work: * text length: this directly affects the expected number and percentage of ''hapax legomena''; the brevity of the Pastoral Epistles also makes any statistical analysis problematic. * text topic: if the author writes on different subjects, of course many subject-specific words will occur only in limited contexts. * text audience: if the author is writing to a peer rather than a student, or their spouse rather than their employer, again quite different vocabulary will appear. * time: over the course of years, both the language and an author's knowledge and use of language will change. In the particular case of the Pastoral Epistles, all of these variables are quite different from those in the rest of the Pauline corpus, and ''hapax legomena'' are no longer widely accepted as strong indicators of authorship; those who reject Pauline authorship of the Pastorals rely on other arguments. There are also subjective questions over whether two forms amount to "the same word": dog vs. dogs, clue vs. clueless, sign vs. signature; many other gray cases also arise. The ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' points out that, although there are 1,500 ''hapaxes'' in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Article o
Hapax Legomena
in ''

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the ...

''. Includes a list of all the Old Testament ''hapax legomena'', by book. A final difficulty with the use of ''hapax legomena'' for authorship determination is that there is considerable variation among works known to be by a single author, and disparate authors often show similar values. In other words, ''hapax legomena'' are not a reliable indicator. Authorship studies now usually use a wide range of measures to look for patterns rather than relying upon single measurements.

Computer science

In the fields of

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...

and

(NLP), esp.

and machine-learned NLP, it is common to disregard ''hapax legomena'' (and sometimes other infrequent words), as they are likely to have little value for computational techniques. This disregard has the added benefit of significantly reducing the memory use of an application, since, by Zipf's law, many words are hapax legomena.

Examples

The following are some examples of ''hapax legomena'' in languages or

corpora Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

Arabic

In the

Qurʾān The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God (''Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides i ...

: * The proper nouns ''Iram'' (Q 89:7,

Iram of the Pillars Iram of the Pillars (; an alternative translation is ''Iram of the tentpoles''), also called "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", or the "City of the pillars", is a lost city mentioned in the Quran. Iram in the Quran The Quran mentions Iram in connection wi ...

), ''Bābil'' (Q 2:102,

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

), ''Bakka(t)'' (Q 3:96, Bakkah), ''Jibt'' (Q 4:51), ''Ramaḍān'' (Q 2:185,

Ramadan Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (''Fasting in Islam, sawm''), communal prayer (salah), reflection, and community. It is also the month in which the Quran is believed ...

), ''ar-Rūm'' (Q 30:2,

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

), ''Tasnīm'' (Q 83:27), ''Qurayš'' (Q 106:1,

Quraysh The Quraysh () are an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe who controlled Mecca before the rise of Islam. Their members were divided into ten main clans, most notably including the Banu Hashim, into which Islam's founding prophet Muhammad was born. By ...

), ''Majūs'' (Q 22:17, Magian/

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

), ''Mārūt'' (Q 2:102,

Harut and Marut Harut and Marut () are a pair of angels mentioned in the Quran Surah 2:102, who teach the arts of sorcery (''siḥr'') in Babylon. According to Quranic exegesis (''tafsīr''), when Harut and Marut complained about mankinds' wickedness, they we ...

), ''Makka(t)'' (Q 48:24,

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

), ''Nasr'' (Q 71:23), ''(Ḏū) an-Nūn'' (Q 21:87) and ''Hārūt'' (Q 2:102,

) occur only once. * ''zanjabīl'' ( –

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 76:17). * The epitheton ornans ''aṣ-ṣamad'' ( – the One besought) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 112:2). * ''ṭūd'' ( -

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 26:63).

Chinese and Japanese

Classical Chinese and Japanese literature contains many

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

that feature only once in the corpus, and their meaning and pronunciation has often been lost. Known in Japanese as , literally "lonely characters", these can be considered a type of ''hapax legomenon''. For example, the ''

Classic of Poetry The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, co ...

'' () uses the character exactly once in the verse , and it was only through the discovery of a description by Guo Pu (276–324 AD) that the character could be associated with a specific type of ancient flute.

English

It is fairly common for authors to "coin" new words to convey a particular meaning or for the sake of entertainment, without any suggestion that they are "proper" words. For example,

P.G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...

and

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

frequently coined novel words. ''Indexy'', below, appears to be an example of this. * ''Flother'', as a synonym for

snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

flake, is a ''hapax legomenon'' of written English found in a manuscript entitled '' The XI Pains of Hell'' (). * '' Honorificabilitudinitatibus'' is a ''hapax legomenon'' of

's works, coming from Erasmus' ''

Adagia ''Adagia'' (singular ''adagium'') is the title of an annotated collection of Greek language, Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled during the Renaissance by Dutch Humanism, humanist Erasmus, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus. Erasmus' repository of p ...

'' * ''Indexy'', in

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish novelist who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. The book is widely considered a milestone in Vampire fiction, and one of t ...

's ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

'', used as an adjective to describe a situational state with no other further use in the language: "If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads." * ''Manticratic'', meaning "of the rule by the Prophet's family or clan", was apparently invented by T. E. Lawrence and appears once in '' Seven Pillars of Wisdom''. * ''Nortelrye'', a word for "education", occurs only once in

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He ...

. * ''Sassigassity'', perhaps with the meaning of "audacity", occurs only once in

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the great ...

's short story "A Christmas Tree". * ''Slæpwerigne'', "sleep-weary", occurs exactly once in the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

corpus, in the ''

Exeter Book The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old Englis ...

''. There is debate over whether it means "weary with sleep" or "weary for sleep".

German

* The name of the 9th-century poem '' Muspilli'' is a

back-formation Back-formation is the process or result of creating a neologism, new word via Morphology (linguistics), morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes ...

from "muspille",

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

''hapax legomenon'' of unclear meaning only found in this text (see for discussion).

Ancient Greek

According to classical scholar

Clyde Pharr Clyde Pharr (17 February 1883 – 31 December 1972) was an American classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, Southwestern Presbyterian University (now Rhodes College), Vanderbilt University (where he was head of the classics department for ma ...

, "the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' has 1097 ''hapax legomena'', while the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

'' has 868". Others have defined the term differently, however, and count as few as 303 in the ''Iliad'' and 191 in the ''Odyssey''. * ''panaōrios'' (),

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

for "very untimely", is one of many words that occur only once in the ''Iliad''. * The Greek

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

contains 686 local ''hapax legomena'', which are sometimes called "New Testament hapaxes". 62 of these occur in 1 Peter and 54 occur in

2 Peter 2 Peter, also known as the Second Epistle of Peter and abbreviated as 2 Pet., is an epistle of the New Testament written in Koine Greek. It identifies the author as "Simon Peter" (in some translations, 'Simeon' or 'Shimon'), a bondservant and ...

. * ''

Epiousion () is a Koine Greek adjective used in the Lord's Prayer verse "" ('Give us today our bread'). Because the word is used nowhere else, its meaning is unclear. It is traditionally translated as "daily", but most modern scholars reject that inte ...

'', often translated into English as ″daily″ in the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...

in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3, occurs nowhere else in all of the known ancient Greek literature. * The word '' aphedrōn'' (ἀφεδρών) "latrine" in the Greek New Testament occurs only twice, in Matthew 15:17 and Mark 7:19, but since it is widely considered that the writer of the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

used the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

as a source, it may be regarded as a ''hapax legomenon''. It was mistakenly translated as "bowel", until an inscription from the ''Lex de astynomis Pergamenorum'' ("Law of the town clerks of

Pergamon Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; ), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north s ...

") confirmed it meant "latrine".

Hebrew

The number of distinct ''hapax legomena'' in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusin ...

suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

and

prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

, only 400 are "true" ''hapax legomena''. A full list can be seen at the

entry for "''Hapax Legomena''". Some examples include: * ''Akut'' (אקוט – fought), only appears once in the Hebrew Bible, in Psalm 95:10. * ''Atzei Gopher'' (עֲצֵי-גֹפֶר – Gopher wood) is mentioned once in the Bible, in Genesis 6:14, in the instruction to make Noah's ark "of gopher wood". Because of its single appearance, its literal meaning is lost. ''Gopher'' is simply a

, although scholars tentatively suggest that the intended wood is

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs from the ''Cupressus'' genus of the '' Cupressaceae'' family, typically found in temperate climates and subtropical regions of Asia, Europe, and North America. The word ''cypress'' ...

. * ''Gvina'' (גבינה –

cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...

) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

, found only in Job 10:10. The word has become extremely common in

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

. * ''Zechuchith'' (זכוכית) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of Biblical Hebrew, found only in Job 28:17. The word derives from the root זכה ''z-ch-h'', meaning clear/transparent and refers to

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

. In Modern Hebrew, it is used for "glass". * ''

Lilith Lilith (; ), also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, theorized to be the first wife of Adam and a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Eden ...

'' (לילית) occurs once in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...

. It is translated several ways. The following verse, Isaiah 34:15, contains another ''hapax legomenon'', the word '' qippoz'' (קִפוֹז), which has been translated as

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

, arrow snake, and sand partridge in different versions of the text.

Hungarian

* The word ''ímés'' is mentioned in István Székely's 1559 book entitled ''Chronica ez vilagnac ieles dolgairol''. According to the theory of literary historian Géza Szentmártoni Szabó, the word means 'half-asleep'.

Irish

* ''chomneibi'', an adjective of unknown meaning describing a

lath A lath or slat is a thin, narrow strip of straight-grained wood used under roof shingles or tiles, on lath and plaster walls and ceilings to hold plaster, and in lattice and trellis work. ''Lath'' has expanded to mean any type of backing m ...

, only appears in ''

Triads of Ireland The title ''Trecheng Breth Féne'' "A Triad of Judgments of the Irish", more widely known as "The Triads of Ireland", refers to a miscellaneous collection of about 256 Old Irish triads (and some numerical variants) on a variety of topics, such as ...

'' #169.

Italian

* ''Ramogna'' is mentioned only once in

Italian literature Italian literature is written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian, including ...

, specifically in

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

's ''

Divina Commedia The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest wor ...

'' (''

Purgatorio ''Purgatorio'' (; Italian for "Purgatory") is the second part of Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', following the ''Inferno (Dante), Inferno'' and preceding the ''Paradiso (Dante), Paradiso''; it was written in the early 14th century. It is an alleg ...

'' XI, 25). * The verb ''attuia'' appears once in the ''Commedia'' (''

'' XXXIII, 48). The meaning is contested but usually interpreted as "darkens" or "impedes". Some manuscripts give the alternative hapax ''accuia'' instead. * ''Trasumanar'' is another ''hapax legomenon'' mentioned in the ''Commedia'' ('' Paradiso'' I, 70, translated as "Passing beyond the human" by Mandelbaum). * ''Ultrafilosofia'', which means "beyond the philosophy" appears in

Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the greatest a ...

's '' Zibaldone'' (Zibaldone 114–115 – June, 7th 1820).

Latin

* ''Deproeliantis'', a participle of the word ''deproelior'', which means "to fight fiercely" or "to struggle violently", appears only in line 11 of Horace's ''Ode'' 1.9. * ''Mactatu'', singular ablative of ''mactatus'', meaning "because of the killing". It occurs only in ''

De rerum natura (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC Didacticism, didactic poem by the Roman Republic, Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius () with the goal of explaining Epicureanism, Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, writte ...

'' by

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ; – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is t ...

. * ''Mnemosynum'', presumably meaning a keepsake or ''aide-memoire'', appears only in Poem 12 of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes. Life ...

's '' Carmina''. * ''Scortillum'', a diminutive form meaning "little prostitute", occurs only in Poem 10 of

's Carmina, line 3. * ''Terricrepo'', an adjective apparently referring to a thunderous oratory method, occurs only in Book 8 of

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

's ''Confessions''. * ''

Romanitas ''Romanitas'' is the collection of political and cultural concepts and practices by which the Romans defined themselves. It is a Latin word, first coined in the third century AD, meaning "Roman-ness" and has been used by modern historians as sho ...

'', a noun signifying "Romanism" or "the Roman way" or "the Roman manner", appears only in Tertullian's ''de Pallio''. * ''Arepo'' is a potential proper name only found in the

Sator square The Sator Square (or Rotas-Sator Square or Templar Magic Square) is a two-dimensional acrostic class of word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome. The earliest squares were found at Roman-era sites, all in ROTAS-form (where the top l ...

. It may be derived by spelling ''opera'' backwards. * ''Eoigena'', an adjective referred to the sun and signifiyng "one born in the east", appears only in an epigraph found in

Castellammare di Stabia Castellammare di Stabia (; ) is a (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region, in southern Italy. It is situated on the Bay of Naples about southeast of Naples, on the route to Sorrento. History Castellammare di Stabia ...

(the ancient

Stabiae Stabiae () was an ancient city situated near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia and approximately 4.5 km (2.79 miles) southwest of Pompeii. Like Pompeii, and being only from Mount Vesuvius, it was largely buried by tephra ash in ...

Slavic

* ''Vytol'' (вытол) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of the known corpus of the Medieval Russian

birch bark manuscript Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the outer layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and appears in various c ...

s. The word occurs i
inscription no. 600
from

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

, dated ca. 1220–1240, in the context " he''vytol'' has been caught" (вытоло изловили, ''vytolo izlovili''). According to

Andrey Zaliznyak Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak ( rus, Андре́й Анато́льевич Зализня́к, p=zəlʲɪˈzʲnʲak; 29 April 1935 – 24 December 2017) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, an expert in historical linguistics, accentology, di ...

, the word does not occur anywhere else, and its meaning is not known. Various interpretations, such as a personal name or the social status of a person, have been proposed.

Spanish

* ''Atafea'' is a ''hapax legomenon'' appearing in a proverb reported by Blasco de Garay in the 16th century (''"uno muere de atafea y otro la desea"''). The meaning of the word was not known, and was initially interpreted to mean ''satiety.'' Modern etymologists link it to the north-African Arab term tafaya/attatfíha, which refers to a stew of onion and coriander. * ''Esi'', believed to derive from the Latin conjunction ''etsi'' "although", appears only once in

Álvaro de Luna Álvaro de Luna y Fernández de Jarava (between 1388 and 13902 June 1453), was a Castilian statesman, favourite of John II of Castile. He served as Constable of Castile and as Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. He earned great influence in ...

's ''Virtuosas e claras mugeres'' (1446).

In popular culture

* The avant-garde filmmaker Hollis Frampton made a series of seven films from 1971 to 1972 titled '' Hapax Legomena I: Nostalgia'' to ''Hapax Legomena VII: Special Effects''. * ''Hapax legomenon'' as a term became briefly prominent in Britain following the 2014–15 University Challenge Final, after videos went viral of Gonville and Caius student Ted Loveday swiftly giving it as a correct answer when presenter

Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English former broadcaster, journalist and author, born in Yorkshire. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate ...

had only managed to ask "Meaning 'said only once', what two-word Greek term denotes a word...". * The word quizzaciously was cited by

Vsauce Vsauce () is a YouTube brand created by educator Michael Stevens. The channels feature videos on scientific, psychological, mathematical, and philosophical topics, as well as gaming, technology, popular culture, and other general interest su ...

host Michael Stevens in 2015 as an example of a ''hapax legomenon'', with

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

only returning one search result for the word at the time despite being included in the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

. The term briefly became an

internet meme An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...

and now returns thousands of Google search results. * In the videogame

NetHack ''NetHack'' is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1984 game ''Hack'', itself inspired by the 1980 game '' Rogue''. The player takes the role ...

, "''HAPAX LEGOMENON''" is one of the possible randomized texts of a still unidentified type of magic scroll. Once read, the scroll casts its magic effect and then vanishes ("a thing said once") but possibly becoming henceforth identified (e.g. scroll of enchant armor, scroll of teleportation, etc.) for that playthrough.

References

External links

Open source Java software for text analysis and calculating hapax ratio (JHapax)archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hapax Legomenon Corpus linguistics 1 (number) Words