In corpus linguistics, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

or an

expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, o ...

that occurs only once within a context: either in the written record of an entire

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works but more than once in that particular work. ''Hapax legomenon'' is a

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, meaning "being said once". The related terms ''dis legomenon'', ''tris legomenon'', and ''tetrakis legomenon'' respectively (, , ) refer to double, triple, or quadruple occurrences, but are far less commonly used. ''Hapax legomena'' are quite common, as predicted by Zipf's law, which states that the frequency of any word in a

corpus Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. For large corpora, about 40% to 60% of the words are ''hapax legomena'', and another 10% to 15% are ''dis legomena''. Thus, in the

Brown Corpus The Brown University Standard Corpus of Present-Day American English (or just Brown Corpus) is an electronic collection of text samples of American English, the first major structured corpus of varied genres. This corpus first set the bar for the ...

of American English, about half of the 50,000 distinct words are ''hapax legomena'' within that corpus. ''Hapax legomenon'' refers to the appearance of a word or an expression in a body of text, not to either its origin or its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a

nonce word A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ...

, which may never be recorded, may find currency and may be widely recorded, or may appear several times in the work which

coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

it, and so on.

Significance

''Hapax legomena'' in ancient texts are usually difficult to decipher, since it is easier to infer meaning from multiple contexts than from just one. For example, many of the remaining undeciphered

Mayan glyphs Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...

are ''hapax legomena'', and Biblical (particularly

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

; see § Hebrew examples) ''hapax legomena'' sometimes pose problems in translation. ''Hapax legomena'' also pose challenges in natural language processing. Some scholars consider ''Hapax legomena'' useful in determining the authorship of written works. P. N. Harrison, in ''The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles'' (1921) made ''hapax legomena'' popular among Bible scholars, when he argued that there are considerably more of them in the three Pastoral Epistles than in other Pauline Epistles. He argued that the number of ''hapax legomena'' in a putative author's corpus indicates his or her vocabulary and is characteristic of the author as an individual. Harrison's theory has faded in significance due to a number of problems raised by other scholars. For example, in 1896, W. P. Workman found the following numbers of ''hapax legomena'' in each

Pauline Epistle The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest extan ...

: At first glance, the last three totals (for the Pastoral Epistles) are not out of line with the others.Workman, "The Hapax Legomena of St. Paul", ''

Expository Times ''The Expository Times'' is a long-established academic journal of biblical studies, theology, and ministry established in 1889 by the Scottish theologian James Hastings. The journal is abstracted and indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, New ...

'', 7 (1896:418), noted i
''The Catholic Encyclopedia'', ''s.v.'' "Epistles to Timothy and Titus"
. To take account of the varying length of the epistles, Workman also calculated the average number of ''hapax legomena'' per page of the Greek text, which ranged from 3.6 to 13, as summarized in the diagram on the right. Although the Pastoral Epistles have more ''hapax legomena'' per page, Workman found the differences to be moderate in comparison to the variation among other Epistles. This was reinforced when Workman looked at several

plays Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, which showed similar variations (from 3.4 to 10.4 per page of Irving's one-volume edition), as summarized in the second diagram on the right. Apart from author identity, there are several other factors that can explain the number of ''hapax legomena'' in a work: * text length: this directly affects the expected number and percentage of ''hapax legomena''; the brevity of the Pastoral Epistles also makes any statistical analysis problematic. * text topic: if the author writes on different subjects, of course many subject-specific words will occur only in limited contexts. * text audience: if the author is writing to a peer rather than a student, or their spouse rather than their employer, again quite different vocabulary will appear. * time: over the course of years, both the language and an author's knowledge and use of language will change. In the particular case of the Pastoral Epistles, all of these variables are quite different from those in the rest of the Pauline corpus, and ''hapax legomena'' are no longer widely accepted as strong indicators of authorship (although the authorship of the Pastorals is subject to debate on other grounds). There are also subjective questions over whether two forms amount to "the same word": dog vs. dogs, clue vs. clueless, sign vs. signature; many other gray cases also arise. The ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' points out that, although there are 1,500 ''hapaxes'' in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Article o
Hapax Legomena
in '' Jewish Encyclopedia''. Includes a list of all the Old Testament ''hapax legomena'', by book. It would not be especially difficult for a forger to construct a work with any percentage of ''hapax legomena'' desired. However, it seems unlikely that forgers much before the 20th century would have conceived such a ploy, much less thought it worth the effort. A final difficulty with the use of ''hapax legomena'' for authorship determination is that there is considerable variation among works known to be by a single author, and disparate authors often show similar values. In other words, ''hapax legomena'' are not a reliable indicator. Authorship studies now usually use a wide range of measures to look for patterns rather than relying upon single measurements.

Computer science

In the fields of computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP), esp. corpus linguistics and

machine-learned Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

NLP, it is common to disregard ''hapax legomena'' (and sometimes other infrequent words), as they are likely to have little value for computational techniques. This disregard has the added benefit of significantly reducing the memory use of an application, since, by Zipf's law, many words are hapax legomena.

Examples

The following are some examples of ''hapax legomena'' in languages or

corpora Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

Arabic examples

In the

Qurʾān The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God in Islam, God. It is organized in 114 surah, cha ...

: * The proper nouns ''Iram'' (Q 89:7,

Iram of the Pillars Iram of the Pillars ( ar, إرَم ذَات ٱلْعِمَاد, ; an alternative translation is ''Iram of the tentpoles''), also called "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", "Ubar", or the "City of the pillars", is considered a lost city, region or tribe men ...

), ''Bābil'' (Q 2:102, Babylon), ''Bakka(t)'' (Q 3:96,

Bakkah Bakkah ( ar, بَكَّةُ ), is a place mentioned in '' sura'' 3 ( 'Āl 'Imrān), '' ayah'' 96 of the Qur'an, a verse sometimes translated as: " Verily the first House set apart unto mankind was that at Bakkah, blest, and a guidance unto the w ...

), ''Jibt'' (Q 4:51), ''Ramaḍān'' (Q 2:185, Ramadan), ''ar-Rūm'' (Q 30:2,

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

), ''Tasnīm'' (Q 83:27), ''Qurayš'' (Q 106:1, Quraysh), ''Majūs'' (Q 22:17,

Magian Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin ''magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius th ...

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...

), ''Mārūt'' (Q 2:102,

Harut and Marut Harut and Marut ( ar, هَارُوْت وَمَارُوْت, Hārūt wa-Mārūt) are two angels mentioned in Quran 2:102, who are said to have been located in Babylon. According to some narratives, those two angels were in the time of Idris. Th ...

), ''Makka(t)'' (Q 48:24,

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

), ''Nasr'' (Q 71:23), ''(Ḏū) an-Nūn'' (Q 21:87) and ''Hārūt'' (Q 2:102,

) occur only once. * ''zanjabīl'' ( – ginger) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 76:17). * The epitheton ornans ''aṣ-ṣamad'' ( – the One besought) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 112:2). * ''ṭūd'' ( -

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

) is a Qurʾānic hapax (Q 26:63).

Chinese and Japanese characters

Classical Chinese and Japanese literature contains many

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...

that feature only once in the corpus, and their meaning and pronunciation has often been lost. Known in Japanese as , literally "lonely characters", these can be considered a type of ''hapax legomenon''. For example, the ''

Classic of Poetry The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, c ...

'' () uses the character exactly once in the verse , and it was only through the discovery of a description by

Guo Pu Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun () was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector ...

(276–324 AD) that the character could be associated with a specific type of ancient flute.

English examples

Love's Labour's Lost - first quarto (1598) - page 47 - honorificabilitudinitatibus

*''Flother'', as a synonym for

snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

flake, is a ''hapax legomenon'' of written English found in a manuscript entitled ''

The XI Pains of Hell ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

'' (circa 1275). *''

Hebenon Hebenon (or hebona) is a botanical substance described in William Shakespeare's tragic play ''Hamlet''. The identity and nature of the poison has been a source of speculation for centuries. Shakespeare's usage Hebenon is the agent of death in ...

'', a poison referred to in

's 'Hamlet' only once. *''

Honorificabilitudinitatibus Honorificabilitudinitatibus (''honōrificābilitūdinitātibus'', ) is the dative and ablative plural of the medieval Latin word ''honōrificābilitūdinitās'', which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours". It is ment ...

'' is a ''hapax legomenon'' of

's works. *''Indexy'', in Bram Stoker's '' Dracula'', used as an adjective to describe a situational state with no other further use in the language "'If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads." *''Manticratic'', meaning "of the rule by the Prophet's family or clan", was apparently invented by

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

and appears once in ''

Seven Pillars of Wisdom ''Seven Pillars of Wisdom'' is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), of serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire ...

''. *''Nortelrye'', a word for "education", occurs only once in

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

. *''Sassigassity'', perhaps with the meaning of "audacity", occurs only once in

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

's short story "A Christmas Tree". *''Slæpwerigne'', "sleep-weary", occurs exactly once in the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

corpus, in the ''

Exeter Book The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old Englis ...

''. There is debate over whether it means "weary with sleep" or "weary for sleep".

German examples

*The name of the 9th-century poem ''

Muspilli ''Muspilli'' is an Old High German poem known in incomplete form (103 lines) from a ninth-century Bavarian manuscript. Its subject is the fate of the soul immediately after death and at the Last Judgment. Many aspects of the interpretation of the ...

'' is a

back-formation In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the ...

from "muspille",

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

''hapax legomenon'' of unclear meaning only found in this text (see Muspilli#Etymology for discussion).

Ancient Greek examples

According to classical scholar Clyde Pharr, "the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

'' has 1097 ''hapax legomena'', while the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...

'' has 868". Others have defined the term differently, however, and count as few as 303 in the ''Iliad'' and 191 in the ''Odyssey''. *''panaōrios'' (),

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

for "very untimely", is one of many words that occur only once in the ''Iliad''. *The Greek

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

contains 686 local ''hapax legomena'', which are sometimes called "New Testament hapaxes". 62 of these occur in

1 Peter The First Epistle of Peter is a book of the New Testament. The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle. The ending of the letter includes a statement that implies that it was written from " Babylon", which is possibly a reference to Rome ...

and 54 occur in 2 Peter. *''

Epiousios () is a Greek adjective used in the Lord's Prayer verse "" ('Give us today our bread'). Because the word is used nowhere else, its meaning is unclear. It is traditionally translated as "daily", but most modern scholars reject that interpretat ...

'', translated into English as ″daily″ in the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3, occurs nowhere else in all of the known ancient Greek literature. *The word '' aphedrōn'' (ἀφεδρών) "latrine" in the Greek New Testament occurs only twice, in Matthew 15:17 and Mark 7:19, but since it is widely considered that the writer of the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...

used the Gospel of Mark as a source, it may be regarded as a ''hapax legomenon''. It was mistakenly translated as "bowel", until an inscription from the ''Lex de astynomis Pergamenorum'' ("Law of the town clerks of

Pergamon Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on th ...

") confirmed it meant "latrine".

Hebrew examples

The number of distinct ''hapax legomena'' in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...

suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...

and

prefixes A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...

, only 400 are "true" ''hapax legomena''. A full list can be seen at the Jewish Encyclopedia entry for "''Hapax Legomena''". Some examples include: * ''Akut'' (אקוט – fought), only appears once in the Hebrew Bible, in Psalm 95:10. * ''Atzei Gopher'' (עֲצֵי-גֹפֶר –

Gopher wood ''Gopher wood'' or ''gopherwood'' is a term used once in the Bible for the material used to construct Noah's ark. Genesis 6:14 states that Noah was instructed to build the Ark of (), commonly transliterated as wood, a word not otherwise used ...

) is mentioned once in the Bible, in Genesis 6:14, in the instruction to make Noah's ark "of gopher wood". Because of its single appearance, its literal meaning is lost. ''Gopher'' is simply a

, although scholars tentatively suggest that the intended wood is cypress. * ''Gvina'' (גבינה – cheese) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of Biblical Hebrew, found only in Job 10:10. The word has become extremely common in

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

. * ''Zechuchith'' (זכוכית) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of Biblical Hebrew, found only in Job 28:17. The word derives from the root זכה ''z-ch-h'', meaning clear/transparent and refers to

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

. In Modern Hebrew, it is used for "glass". * ''

Lilith Lilith ( ; he, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Ed ...

'' (לילית) occurs once in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Edom Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east.N ...

. It is translated several ways.

Irish example

*''chomneibi'', an adjective of unknown meaning describing a

lath A lath or slat is a thin, narrow strip of straight-wood grain, grained wood used under roof shingles or tiles, on lath and plaster walls and ceilings to hold plaster, and in Latticework, lattice and Trellis (architecture), trellis work. ''Lath ...

, only appears in ''

Triads of Ireland The title ''Trecheng Breth Féne'' "A Triad of Judgments of the Irish", more widely known as "The Triads of Ireland", refers to a miscellaneous collection of about 256 Old Irish triads (and some numerical variants) on a variety of topics, such as ...

'' #169.

Italian examples

*''Ramogna'' is mentioned only once in

Italian literature Italian literature is written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian, including ...

, specifically in

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...

's '' Divina Commedia'' (''

Purgatorio ''Purgatorio'' (; Italian for "Purgatory") is the second part of Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', following the '' Inferno'' and preceding the '' Paradiso''. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the climb of D ...

'' XI, 25). *The verb ''attuia'' appears once in the ''Commedia'' (''

'' XXXIII, 48). The meaning is contested but usually interpreted as "darkens" or "impedes". Some manuscripts give the alternative hapax ''accuia'' instead. *''Trasumanar'' is another ''hapax legomenon'' mentioned in the ''Commedia'' ('' Paradiso'' I, 70, translated as "Passing beyond the human" by Mandelbaum). *''Ultrafilosofia'', which means "beyond the philosophy" appears in

Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...

's '' Zibaldone'' (Zibaldone 114–115 – June, 7th 1820).

Latin examples

*''Deproeliantis'', a participle of the word ''deproelior'', which means "to fight fiercely" or "to struggle violently", appears only in line 11 of Horace's ''Ode'' 1.9. *''Mactatu'', singular ablative of ''mactatus'', meaning "because of the killing". It occurs only in '' De rerum natura'' by

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...

. *''Mnemosynus'', presumably meaning a keepsake or ''aide-memoire'', appears only in Poem 12 of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...

's ''

Carmina The ''Odes'' ( la, Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin lyric poems by Horace. The Horatian ode format and style has been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were published in 23 BC. A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, wa ...

''. *''Scortillum'', a diminutive form meaning "little prostitute", occurs only in Poem 10 of

, line 3. *''Terricrepo'', an adjective apparently referring to a thunderous oratory method, occurs only in Book 8 of

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North A ...

's ''Confessions''. *'' Romanitas'', a noun signifying "Romanism" or "the Roman way" or "the Roman manner", appears only in Tertullian's ''de Pallio''. *''Arepo'' is a potential proper name only found in the

Sator square The Sator Square (or the Rotas-Sator Square, or the Templar Magic Square) is a two-dimensional acrostic class of word square containing a five-word Latin palindrome. The earliest Sator squares were found at several Roman-era sites, all in ROT ...

. It may be derived by spelling ''opera'' backwards. *''Eoigena'', an adjective referred to the sun and signifiyng “one born in the east”, appears only in an epigraph found in

Castellammare di Stabia Castellammare di Stabia (; nap, Castiellammare 'e Stabbia) is a '' comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region, in southern Italy. It is situated on the Bay of Naples about southeast of Naples, on the route to Sorrento. History ...

(the ancient Stabiae).

Slavic examples

* ''Vytol'' (вытол) is a ''hapax legomenon'' of the known corpus of the Medieval Russian

birch bark manuscript Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and in various ...

s. The word occurs i
inscription no. 600
from Novgorod, dated ca. 1220–1240, in the context " he''vytol'' has been caught" (вытоло изловили). According to

Andrey Zaliznyak Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak ( rus, Андре́й Анато́льевич Зализня́к, p=zəlʲɪˈzʲnʲak; 29 April 1935 – 24 December 2017) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, an expert in historical linguistics, accentology, diale ...

, the word does not occur anywhere else, and its meaning is not known. Various interpretations, such as a personal name or the social status of a person, have been proposed.

Spanish examples

* ''Atafea'' is a ''hapax legomenon'' appearing in a proverb reported by Blasco de Garay in the 16th century (''"uno muere de atafea y otro la desea"''). The meaning of the word was not known, and was initially interpreted to mean ''satiety.'' Modern etymologists link it to the north-african arab term tafaya/attatfíha, which refers to a stew of onion and coriander. * ''Esi'', believed to derive from the Latin conjunction ''etsi'' "although", appears only once in

Álvaro de Luna Álvaro de Luna y Fernández de Jarava (between 1388 and 13902 June 1453), was a Castilian statesman, favourite of John II of Castile. He served as Constable of Castile and as Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. He earned great influence in t ...

's ''Virtuosas e claras mugeres'' (1446).

In popular culture

* The avant-garde filmmaker

Hollis Frampton Hollis William Frampton, Jr. (March 11, 1936 – March 30, 1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. He was best known for his innovative and non-linear structural films that defi ...

made a series of seven films from 1971 to 1972 titled '' Hapax Legomena I: Nostalgia'' to ''Hapax Legomena VII: Special Effects''. * ''Hapax legomenon'' as a term became briefly prominent in Britain following the 2014–15 University Challenge Final, after videos went viral of Gonville and Caius student Ted Loveday swiftly giving it as a correct answer when presenter

Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and television presenter. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate new ...

had only managed to ask "Meaning 'said only once', what two-word Greek term denotes a word...". * The word quizzaciously was cited by

Vsauce Vsauce () is a YouTube brand created by educator Michael Stevens. The channels feature videos on scientific, psychological, mathematical, and philosophical topics, as well as gaming, technology, popular culture, and other general interest subj ...

host Michael Stevens in 2015 as an example of a ''hapax legomenon'', with

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

only returning one search result for the word at the time despite being included in the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

. The term briefly became an internet meme and now returns thousands of Google search results. * In videogame

NetHack ''NetHack'' is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1982 game ''Hack'', itself inspired by the 1980 game ''Rogue''. The player takes the role as ...

, "''HAPAX LEGOMENON''" is one of the possible randomized texts of a still unidentified type of magic scroll. Once read, the scroll casts its magic effect and then vanishes ("a thing said once") but possibly becoming henceforth identified (e.g. scroll of enchant armor, scroll of teleportation, etc.) for that gameplay. * "''Hapax Legomenon''" is the name of a wizard friend of Heden in the novel "Thief" by Matt Colville, the second book in his Ratcatchers series.

References

External links

Open source Java software for text analysis and calculating hapax ratio (JHapax)archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hapax Legomenon Corpus linguistics 1 (number) Words