hapax legomenon
nounUK /ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɒ.məˌnɒn/ · US /ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɑ.məˌnɑn/
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”).
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences A word occurring only once in a given corpus.
- άγνως is a New Testament hapax legomenon. άγνός occurs two other times in Paul, both occurrences are in 2 Cor.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:
- 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.[2000, Steven Pinker, Words and Rules, →ISBN, page 172:
2 more examples
- 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.2005, Hanna Kahana, Esther: Juxtaposition of the Septuagint Translation with the Hebrew Text, page 129, footnote:
- 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.2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 5:
- Related terms
- dis legomenon, tris legomenon, tetrakis legomenon, accidental gap