nonword

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A form of non-word — Any 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).

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Meanings

nounnonword (plural nonwords)

plural nonwords

  1. alternativeAlternative spelling of non-word.

    Trevor quickly challenged my nonword and then cleverly played out with TITIAN

    2004, Commentary on the 2004 African Scrabble Championships
    1 more example

    We used a nonword naming task to examine how English speakers assign stress to novel phonological forms.

    2000, Zevin and Joanisse, Orthographic and Metrical Cues to English Stress
Cite this entry
APA

nonword. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonword

MLA

“nonword.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonword. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nonword,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonword.

Source: nonword on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.