How words are born

The word neologism is built on the Greek adjective néos ("new") and the noun lógos ("word, expression"). It refers to newly coined words that, almost like a small linguistic earthquake, suddenly shake up dictionaries—and often make language purists raise an eyebrow.

The French form néologisme is first documented in 1734, in L'Encyclopédie, and is defined as follows:

“a tendency among certain people to use new expressions that differ from those accepted by common usage […] Neologism consists not only in introducing unnecessary new words into a language, but also in unusual turns of phrase, bold combinations of terms, and the strangeness of the images they evoke.”

Why neologisms emerge

Historically, neologisms have not always been welcomed. They have often been treated as unnecessary innovations or even as a kind of linguistic misbehavior.

And yet, at some point, the word neologism was itself a neologism. The reason is simple: people need new words to describe new realities. Neologisms open the door to emerging ideas, technologies, and social changes. They allow language—and society—to evolve together.

Lexicographers behind dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Merriam-Webster treat dictionaries almost like snapshots of language in motion. New entries reflect not just linguistic creativity, but also shifts in culture and everyday life.

Every update to major English dictionaries introduces new words and meanings, showing just how dynamic and inventive the language continues to be.

How new words are formed

New words can arise in several ways.

In English, people often distinguish between loanwords—words adopted from other languages—and neologisms, which are newly created within the language itself. In practice, however, borrowed words are often discussed alongside neologisms because they also expand the vocabulary.

Neologisms are sometimes called lexical neologisms when they introduce a genuinely new word into the language. Within that category, some are combinatory, meaning they are formed by combining existing elements according to standard word-formation rules such as affixation or compounding. Others are semantic neologisms, where an existing word acquires a new meaning, as happened with mouse in computing or cloud in digital technology. Short-lived fashionable expressions are often described as buzzwords or fads.

Neologisms may also be created through blending, by merging parts of existing words. Well-known English examples include brunch (breakfast + lunch) and smog (smoke + fog).

Another route is abbreviation or acronym formation. English includes countless examples, from NASA to scuba—the latter originally an acronym for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.”

New words can also enter a language through translation from a foreign term. For example, some specialized communities have adopted the word compersion to describe the feeling of pleasure someone experiences when seeing their partner happy with another person.

A word may also arise through adaptation. For example, adulting developed from adult and came to mean behaving like a responsible grown-up, especially in ways associated with ordinary life tasks.

Another productive process is the genericization of brand names. In everyday English, people may say Google for searching online, Kleenex for facial tissue, or Hoover for vacuum cleaner use in British English. These are cases where a brand name begins to function as a general term.

Neologisms are especially common in technical and technological fields. Over the past few decades, English has absorbed or created terms such as blog, email, hack, spam, bug, patch, avatar, plugin, pop-up, tag, ban, and link, many of which quickly became part of ordinary speech.

Beyond technology, the world of marketing constantly generates new words, particularly through naming: the process of choosing or inventing the most effective name for a brand, product, or service after analyzing its features, target market, and positioning.

• IKEA combines the initials of its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, with those of his childhood farm and village.
• Kodak was invented to be short, distinctive, easy to pronounce, and memorable; it also has a sharp, onomatopoeic quality that evokes the click of a camera.
• Sony is commonly explained as drawing on the Latin sonus (“sound”) and the English word sonny, suggesting youthfulness and energy.

Creative writers, journalists, and public figures also play a major role in coining new expressions, many of which later spread into broader usage.

A real-world case: “selfie”

A well-known example of a modern neologism is the word selfie.

The term first appeared in 2002 on an Australian online forum, where a user posted a photograph of themselves and casually referred to it as a “selfie.” At first, it was simply informal internet slang. Over the following decade, however, the rise of smartphones and social media platforms helped the word spread rapidly around the world.

By 2013, selfie had become so widespread that Oxford Dictionaries selected it as its Word of the Year. From a linguistic point of view, the word is also interesting because it combines self with the suffix -ie, a formation that is especially common in Australian English, as in barbie for barbecue.

What made selfie successful was not only its catchy form, but also the fact that it filled a real lexical gap. There had been no short, widely accepted everyday term for a self-taken photograph, especially one intended for online sharing. Once the practice became common, the word had a clear path into mainstream English.

The rise of selfie illustrates two key conditions for a neologism to become established:

1. It must spread widely among a large number of speakers.
2. It must be used naturally in everyday communication, not just discussed as an unusual or amusing word.

Today, selfie is fully integrated into standard English and appears in major dictionaries, showing how quickly a new word can move from niche slang to mainstream usage.

Final thoughts

If words are the building blocks of language, neologisms are the tools people use to shape new ideas and describe new realities. They do not usually replace existing words so much as fill gaps, reflect change, and give form to creativity.

At the same time, neologisms often spark lively debate about correctness, usefulness, and style because, like all innovations, they can divide the communities that create and use them.