non-word

plural non-words · alternative nonword

1. human sciencesAny sequence of sounds or letters which is not considered to be a word, whether through an accidental gap (for example, phextapher-styphren) or through a systematic gap (for example, fssstpklyitnbkdv).

   This linguistics textbook, like many others, precedes nonwords with an asterisk; for example, *narbletome.

   1 more example

   […] trashola prose features regular dollops of sub-literate laziness (including non-words like "arousement" and "assertation").

   1986, Daniel G. Marowski, Contemporary Literary Criticism, page 382

   Antonyms: word

2. informalAny term that is not among the words of a language as those have often traditionally been defined by nonlinguists (for example, having syllables, and having come from centuries-old predecessor words): thus, an abbreviation, acronym, initialism, alphanumeric symbol, number written in digits (Arabic numerals 0 to 9), or logographic symbol.

   In their glossary, they were using a convention where the words were in blue font and the abbreviations and other nonwords were in purple font.

   1 more example

   All this was revealing and encouraged our work to proceed with a less lofty aim than initially, but with a more practical one, namely, to inform authors, reviewers, and especially desk or copyeditors about the recommendations in different areas of biology and to imbue these persons with the need for some rules and guidelines on the use of "nonwords" in science. Clearly, authors and editors are free to use symbols and abbreviations of their choice as long as they are defined and conform to basic rules of scientific nomenclature in their fields.

   1999, Arnošt Kotyk, “Introduction”, in Quantities, Symbols, Units, and Abbreviations in the Life Sciences: A Guide for Authors and Editors, Humana Press, →ISBN

   Antonyms: word