The story
- French · derived fromesquiver“evade, dodge, duck”
- English todayesquivalience
Made up as a copyright trap in the 2001 New Oxford American Dictionary, and said to be related to French esquiver (“evade, dodge, duck”). Began to see actual use by 2006, after having been identified as fictitious in 2005. The entry is still present in the dictionary's third edition (2010).
Words from the same roots
Frenchesquiver all →
skiveskiver
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.