Thursday, January 15, 2009

Uncommon "Nym Words"

As long as we are on the subject of acronyms and bacronyms, I thought I would share some of the other "nym words" that I have come across recently. It is amazing how many there are and I am not talking about the basic nym's like synonym, antonym, homonym, eponym and pseudonym.

Here are some of my favorites:

Aptronym: A person's name that matches it's owner's occupation or character very well (either in fiction or reality); e.g. arctic explorer Will Snow, hairdresser Dan Druff.• From apt (=suitable); coined by Franklin P. Adams.

Charactonym: A name given to a literary character that is descriptive of a quality or trait of the character; such as, “Long John Silver” for someone who is tall and has silver hair.

Capitonym: A word which changes its meaning and pronunciation when capitalised; e.g. polish and Polish, august and August, concord and Concord. From capital letter.

Pecilonym: 1. The simultaneous use of several names or synonyms for one thing. 2. One of various names for the same thing; a synonym or having a variety of names.

Netcronym: An abbreviation that consists of the first letters of each word in a phrase and which is used when discussing a subject in a chat room or when writing an e-mail. Netcronyms are a quick way of telling people what you think; for example, IMO is a netcronym for “in my opinion”.

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