The story
Pseudoword, coined ex nihilo by American psycholinguist Jean Berko Gleason in the 1950s as a word that children taking the test would not have heard before. Probably influenced by spout
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
spow
Today it means: An imaginary action resembling the headcarrying of a teapot, used in the Wug Test to investigate the acquisition of the past participle form in English-speaking children. Full definition →