hapax legomenon

Meanings

1. A word occurring only once in a given corpus.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *sm̥-der. Ancient Greek ᾰ̔́πᾰξ (hắpăx) Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-der. Proto-Indo-European *léǵ-e-ti Proto-Hellenic *légō Ancient Greek λεγόμενον (legómenon) Ancient Greek ᾰ̔́πᾰξ λεγόμενον (hắpăx legómenon)der. English 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”).