hapax legomenon
- noun
- /ˈhæpæks lɪˈɡoʊmənən/
- Specialized
:
hapax legómeno
- For whereas hapax legomena only occur once, doublets occur elsewhere, thus enabling comparisons with other texts.
Examples
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The manuscript contained a rare hapax legomenon that intrigued the scholars analyzing its text.
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Doublets are far more useful for biblical exegesis than hapax legomena.
Academic text (2007) -
The lexis of poem 105 is also unusual; the several hapax legomena ("scavezza," "assottiglia," "disdetto") add color without lowering the tone.
Academic text (2003) -
In linguistic studies, a hapax legomenon is a term that appears only once in the works of an author.
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Scholars often find that a hapax legomenon can reveal unique insights into the language used in ancient texts.
Synonyms
A word that appears only once in a text or author's work
How Often
Surface Forms
Morphology
hapax + legomenon
The phrase is built from Greek roots that literally mean something like 'once' + 'said/said thing', so knowing the constituents would point toward 'an item said or occurring only once'. However, this is a low-frequency, technical scholarly borrowing (and one constituent, 'legomenon', is obscure), so the term is not fully predictable or immediately accessible to a typical B1 learner.
Etymology
Hapax legomenon comes from the Greek words hapax ('once') and legomenon ('said'), which gives the clear picture of a word that is 'said' only one time. So it means a word or expression that appears just once in a text.