nonce (adj.)

A term describing a LINGUISTIC FORM which a speaker consciously invents or accidentally uses on a single occasion: a nonce word or a nonce formation (which may involve UNITS larger than the WORD). Many factors account for their use, e.g. a speaker cannot remember a particular word, so coins an alternative approximation (as in linguistified, heard from a student who felt he was getting nowhere with linguistics), or is constrained by circumstances to produce a new form (as in newspaper headlines). Nonce formations have occasionally come to be adopted by the community – in which case they cease by definition to be ‘nonce’ (forms used ‘for the (n)once’), and become neologisms.