Definition of nonce word
: a word (as ringday in “four girls I know have become engaged today: this must be ringday”) coined and used apparently to suit one particular occasion sometimes independently by different writers or speakers but not adopted into use generally
- Coleridge coined mammonolatry in 1820 as a nonce word
- I still think I heard it, though so seldom that it had more or less the air of a nonce word
- —S. T. Byington
