Occasionalism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A metaphysical doctrine that holds that all events are occasioned (caused) by God. uncountable
  2. 2
    A nonce word. countable

    "This measure stems from the observation that productive morphological rules are likely to produce occasionalisms, whereas unproductive rules are not likely to do so. Occasionalisms are thus particularly important for determining productivity."

Synonyms

All synonyms
nonce wordnonce word

Example

More examples

"This measure stems from the observation that productive morphological rules are likely to produce occasionalisms, whereas unproductive rules are not likely to do so. Occasionalisms are thus particularly important for determining productivity."

Etymology

From occasional + -ism.

Related phrases

nonce word

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.