Showing posts with label "nym words". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "nym words". Show all posts

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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