Paleologism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A word or phrase that was coined in the distant past, often now obscured or offensive, or if recently used: possibly having a definition or implication different from that of any earlier usage.
"Another is the paleologism of pars pro toto in which a part of an organ or function can symbolize the whole organ or concept; eg, the stomach may be the locus of difficulty with a patient with a history of frustrated dependency needs because of its association with the process of being fed and loved by the mother."
- 2 An obsolete term.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Another is the paleologism of pars pro toto in which a part of an organ or function can symbolize the whole organ or concept; eg, the stomach may be the locus of difficulty with a patient with a history of frustrated dependency needs because of its association with the process of being fed and loved by the mother."
Etymology
From paleo- + -logism, from Ancient Greek: παλαιός (palaiós, “old”) in combination with λόγος (lógos, “word”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.