Univerbation
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The diachronic process of forming a new single word from a fixed expression of several words. countable, uncountable
"Lexicalization and grammaticization compared In Section 3, it was pointed out that there are two kinds of lexicalization which can be usefully compared with grammaticization, i.e. fossilization and univerbation. The discussion and examples in this section will be confined to the more general and widespread of these two types, i.e. univerbation (the emergence of new lexical entries from collocations), primarily in order to keep the presentation simple and straightforward."
- 2 A new word formed by this process. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"Lexicalization and grammaticization compared In Section 3, it was pointed out that there are two kinds of lexicalization which can be usefully compared with grammaticization, i.e. fossilization and univerbation. The discussion and examples in this section will be confined to the more general and widespread of these two types, i.e. univerbation (the emergence of new lexical entries from collocations), primarily in order to keep the presentation simple and straightforward."
Etymology
Probably from French univerbation, from uni- (“uni-”) + Latin verbum (“word”) + French -ation (“-ation”).
More for "univerbation"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.