Meaning

(linguistics) 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)..

Definitions by Sense

1. (linguistics) 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).
2. (informal) Any 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.

Example Sentences

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

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

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.

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.

Word Forms

• non-words
• nonword

Antonyms for non-word

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When Should You Use Non-word?

Use non-word when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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