What is a word that has no definition?

It is in fact in the Oxford English Dictionary (login required), defined as “A nonsense word” (i.e. a word that has no meaning), though notes that in practice, used by children, “typically expressing excited approbation: fantastic, fabulous.”

What is it called when you define a word with itself?

A word is autological or homological if it describes itself. The common term for this is a backronym, a back-formation acronym. Also known as recursive acronym/ metacronym/ recursive initialism, this is a fun way to coin names for new programming languages and such.

Can you use a word in its own definition?

A circular definition is a definition that uses the term(s) being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined. There are several kinds of circular definition, and several ways of characterising the term: pragmatic, lexicographic and linguistic.

What are words that don’t exist?

9 Words That Don’t Exist

• Irregardless. Wait, so is that the opposite of ‘regardless’?
• Nuculer. Our wonderful President, as well as Jack Bauer, seem to know about a whole new form of energy.
• Like.. Like is actually a word.
• 360 Degrees. Again, this is actually a phrase.
• Brang.
• Ain’t.
• Performant.
• Non-defunct.

Does Heterological describe itself?

An adjective is autological (sometimes homological) if it describes itself. An adjective is heterological if it does not describe itself. Hence “long” is a heterological word (because it is not a long word), as are “hyphenated” and “monosyllabic”.

How do we define a word?

The definition of a word is a letter or group of letters that has meaning when spoken or written. The definition of a word is a letter or group of letters that has meaning when spoken or written. An example of a word is dog. An example of words are the seventeen sets of letters that are written to form this sentence.

What English word has most definitions?

According to Guinness World Records, the word that has the most meanings in the English language is the verb “set.” “Set” has 430 senses listed in the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which was published in 1989.

What is another word for without?

Without: not having. Synonyms: absent, minus, sans… Antonyms: within… Find the right word.

Why can’t you use the same word for defining?

Defining doesn’t work that way. Defining requires utterances, not single words. Even if you tried to define something by using the same word on either side of the equals sign, colon, or “be”-verb, that act wouldn’t really be defining.

Why are dictionary definitions so hard to write?

Mostly that’s because dictionary definitions are very difficult to write. A very talented editor may write seven entries in a day, or she may need weeks to describe just one word. At Wordnik, we believe that every word should be lookupable.

Can you use the word ‘definition’ in a sentence?

In any definition of the word “definition,” the word “definition” is by definition forbidden. Substitute any word for “definition,” and the rule holds: if you want to define “sapphire,” you may use any word in the English language except for the word “sapphire.”