hapax legomenon
Syllables: ha·pax le·go·me·nonUK/ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɒ.məˌnɒn//ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɑ.məˌnɑn/
hapax legomenon noun: a word occurring only once in a given corpus.
Noun
hapax legomenon (plural hapax legomena or (rare) hapax legomenons)
- 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
- Synonyms:
- hapax
hapax legomenon meaning in Arabic, Indonesian and Persian
hapax legomenon in Arabic
- word occurring only once
- لَفْظ فَرِيد lafẓ farīd, كَلِمَة وَحِيدَة, لَفْظَة مُفْرَدَة, شَاهِد أُحَادِيّ šāhid ʔuḥādiyy
hapax legomenon in Indonesian
- word occurring only once
- hapax legomena
hapax legomenon in Persian
- word occurring only once
- تکبار واژه takbâr vâže
Synonyms of hapax legomenon
Forms of hapax legomenon
| plural | hapax legomena |
|---|---|
| plural (rare) | hapax legomenons |
Origin of hapax legomenon
From Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (hápax legómenon, “(something) said only once”), from ἅπαξ (hápax, “once”) and λεγόμενον (legómenon), passive participle of λέγω (légō, “say”).
Words that rhyme with hapax legomenon
Questions about hapax legomenon
- What does hapax legomenon mean?
- Hapax legomenon means a word occurring only once in a given corpus.
- What is hapax legomenon in Arabic?
- Hapax legomenon in Arabic is لَفْظ فَرِيد (lafẓ farīd), كَلِمَة وَحِيدَة, لَفْظَة مُفْرَدَة. See Hapax legomenon meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is hapax legomenon?
- Hapax legomenon is a noun.
- How do you pronounce hapax legomenon?
- Hapax legomenon is pronounced /ˌhæ.pæks ləˈɡɒ.məˌnɒn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of hapax legomenon?
- The plural of hapax legomenon is hapax legomena.
Words near hapax legomenon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hapax legomenon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-hapax legomenon.wav.
Cite this entry: “hapax legomenon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hapax_legomenon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.