Study of Language | word formation

etymology

the study of the origin and the history of the word

blending

the combination of two seperate forms to produce a single new term; breakfast + lunch = brunch

derivation

placing affixes with already existing words; unhappy,prejudge, joyful, careless

acronym

New words formed from the first letters of a set of words; CD=compact disk, PIN=personal identification number, etc.

clipping

when a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form; advertisement=ad, fanatic=fan, pub house=pub, etc.

backformation

a word (usually a noun) is reduced to form another type of word (usually a verb); an editor will edit, a babysitter will babysit, a burglar will burgle, etc.

hypocrism

a longer word reduced to a single syllable + -y or -ie; television= telly, handkerchief= hankie, etc.

coinage

inventing new words (usually for commercial products that become generally used); twitter—>tweeting, google —>googling

borrowing

taking over words from different languages; a pretsel= German, a sofa=Arabic, yogurt=Turkish, etc.

compound

joining of two seperate words to create a single form; book+case=bookcase, wall+paper=wallpaper, fast+food=fast-food, good+looking=good-looking, etc.

eponym

a new word formed from the name of a real or fictitious person

conversion

change in function of word (usually from noun to verb or verb to noun); dust—> did you dust in the living room?, to hire —> we have two new hires

calque (loan translation)

a type of borrowing: a direct translation; wolkenkrabber (Dutch)—>skyscraper (English), perros calientes (Spanish) —> hot dogs (English), etc.