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A word that occurs only a single time within an entire text, a specific author's complete literary corpus, or the surviving records of a language.
From Ancient Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (hápax legómenon, 'spoken once'). In textual scholarship and corpus linguistics, a hapax legomenon is a unique lexical singularity. In the works of William Shakespeare (which encompass 884,647 total words), there are over 7,000 hapax legomena—words that the Bard penned in only one single play or sonnet and never uttered again! The most famous Shakespearean hapax is the 27-letter tongue-twister 'honorificabilitudinitatibus' in Love's Labour's Lost. Other celebrated single-occurrence words include 'unaccommodated' (King Lear), 'bodkin' (Hamlet's bare dagger), 'mobled' (Hamlet's mobled queen), and 'kickshaws' (Twelfth Night). In biblical scholarship, hapax legomena pose famous translation dilemmas because there are no parallel passages to confirm their exact meaning.
Test any English word to explore unique literary occurrences and hapax legomena:
Verified English words exemplifying hapax legomenon with Scrabble scores
Linguistic definitions, etymological origins, and tournament usage
A writer may coin a nonce word for a specific dramatic character (like Shakespeare's playful Latinate comedy), translate a foreign word once, or address an exotic subject not revisited elsewhere in their works.