nihilartikel

plural nihilartikels

1. A deliberately fictitious entry in an encyclopedia or academic work, generally identifiable as false, usually included to brand the intellectual property so copies can be identified.

   A nihilartikel was once inserted into Wikipedia that lasted for five months.

   2005 December 17, Marc Goodman, “Interesting slam on Wikipedia”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet), message-ID <aYqdnU-48IgKJznenZ2dnUVZ_sydnZ2d@newedgenetworks.com>

   2 more examples

   2005 May 1, Eve Maler, “The Language Log”, Pushing String, at www.xmlgrrl.com https://web.archive.org/web/20061111100505/http://www.xmlgrrl.com/blog/archives/2005/05/01/the-language-log/ The post never does find the word it’s looking for, but it eventually alights on a discussion of the Nihilartikel, a fake dictionary or encyclopedia entry created for playful or copyright-trap reasons.

   There are also fake entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias, known as nihilartikels, which serve the same purpose.

   [2005 December 18, Tom Anderson, “Putney Green”, in uk.transport.london (Usenet)

   Synonyms: Mountweazel