# Words coined by famous people **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389 "2013-05-15T10:41:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/61 "2013-05-24T18:19:45Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > Actually I believe that originally an Orc was some kind of obscure mythological sea creature, but Tolkien transformed it into the modern meaning. He did the same with elves and trolls, and I understand his plural for dwarves is different from the previously-usual one. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/62 "2013-05-24T20:52:13Z")
John Wheeler coined both “black hole” and “wormhole” in their astronomical contexts. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/63 "2013-05-24T21:16:45Z")
If this is considered a hijack, please just ignore. Listing words coined by famous people, reminds me that some people became famous because their names became words. So, for example, we have: boycott - named with respect to one [Charles Boycott](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=boycott&searchmode=none) sandwich - after the [Earl of Sandwich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich) guillotine - after [Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#French_Revolution) And, a more obscure one: shrapnel - named for [General Henry Shrapnel](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=shrapnel&searchmode=none) I’m certain there are more, plenty more. Wanna play? ---
**Author:** ![Rodygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Rodygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodygirl)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/64 "2013-05-24T23:32:30Z")
Heinlein coined the word “Waldo” meaning auxiliary hands for working on radioactive material or other stuff inconvenient to touch. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/65 "2013-05-25T21:15:56Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > If this is considered a hijack, please just ignore. > > Listing words coined by famous people, reminds me that some people became famous because their names became words. So, for example, we have: > > boycott - named with respect to one [Charles Boycott](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=boycott&searchmode=none) > > sandwich - after the [Earl of Sandwich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich) > > guillotine - after [Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#French_Revolution) > > And, a more obscure one: > shrapnel - named for [General Henry Shrapnel](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=shrapnel&searchmode=none) > > I’m certain there are more, plenty more. Wanna play? Sideburns, after [Ambrose Burnside](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside#Sideburns) ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/66 "2013-05-25T21:21:09Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:26, topic:658389”] [moderator note] Political jabs are not allowed in GQ. Don’t do this again. [/moderator note] [/QUOTE] I’m going to credit Bush with ‘misunderestimate’, a perfectly cromulent word that I have employed on several occasions. As for famous people, Thomas Jefferson has been mentioned as a neologist. But he was also a creative speller and would sometimes use different spellings of a word in the same document. Side thought- obviously made up words, but invented by whom? Television for example- did Philo T Farnsworth invent the word, as well as the device? ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/67 "2013-05-25T23:09:48Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Sideburns, after [Ambrose Burnside](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside#Sideburns) Good one! How 'bout [mesmerize](http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/)? (I guess the [Crapper](http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/factoid1/p/thomas_crapper.htm) story has pretty much gone down the toilet). ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/68 "2013-05-26T20:55:21Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > To briefly continue this hijack, a good book for hashing out relative dates and body counts from genocides / mass killings is [The Great Big Book of Horrible Things](http://www.bookofhorriblethings.com/), by statistician Matthew White. > > And to go back on topic, Mr. White (although arguably not very famous) has coined a few terms for his area of interest. He calls himself an **atrocitologist** , and takes as his topic **multicides**. Recognizing that WWII and WWI were inextricably linked, and that many multicides can be loosely associated with those two events (Mao and Stalin, for example), [he calls that whole great 20th-century extended bloodletting](http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm) “the **hemoclysm**.” This piqued my morbid interest, so I checked out this book. White performs due diligence researching the various sources for the sake of accurate body counts. But I was disappointed by what he left out: no mention at all of the Boers who died of neglect in British concentration camps; a brief note on the Hereros who were driven by the Germans to die in the Namibia but none at all of the camp on Shark Island; and he discounts the Potato Famine as an atrocity, ignoring the fact that fungus can’t read maps and all the potatoes in Northern Europe were blighted but only Ireland starved. Mr. White subscribes to the theory that governments can only commit sins of commission, not omission. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/69 "2013-05-26T21:30:19Z")
Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme”. ---
**Author:** ![Bones\_Daley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@Bones\_Daley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bones_Daley)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/70 "2013-05-26T21:35:32Z")
What I would dearly love to know is who was responsible for the first documented use of “irregardless” ? I could make a shrewd guess, but apparently political jabs are not allowed… ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/71 "2013-05-26T23:33:43Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > If this is considered a hijack, please just ignore. > > Listing words coined by famous people, reminds me that some people became famous because their names became words. So, for example, we have: > > boycott - named with respect to one [Charles Boycott](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=boycott&searchmode=none) > > sandwich - after the [Earl of Sandwich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich) > > guillotine - after [Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#French_Revolution) > > And, a more obscure one: > shrapnel - named for [General Henry Shrapnel](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=shrapnel&searchmode=none) > > I’m certain there are more, plenty more. Wanna play? Chauvinist! (although Nicolas Chauvin may not have been a real person). ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/72 "2013-05-27T00:15:01Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > I’m going to credit Bush with ‘misunderestimate’, a perfectly cromulent word that I have employed on several occasions. Does that mean Will Ferrell (or his writer, rather) gets credit for strategery? The thing about “nuke you lar” is it’s not even a different word, just a perfectly cromulant regional/folksy pronunciation of an existing word, thus out of scope of this thread altogether even if it wasn’t just a political jab. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/73 "2013-05-27T05:04:54Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > How 'bout [mesmerize](http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/)? Who was the famous person that coined that word? I know that the word came from Mesmer’s name, but that’s not what this thread is about. If we were just talking about words that came from people’s names we’d be listing quisling, volt, amp, Curium, Einsteinium, ohm, Kelvin, Fahrenheit, Celsius, Coulomb, Farad, Henry, decibel, Pascal, Joule, Watt, Lawrencium, Bohrium, Fermium, Mendelevium, and a zillion different species names. (Sure, **KarlGauss** , I’ll play – and include gauss as one of the words 😉 – but we should do that in a different thread so we’re not hijacking this one) ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/74 "2013-05-27T05:06:28Z")
I’d say the scientist examples don’t count; they’re not coining words, they’re _naming_ things. ---
**Author:** ![Gilbert1984](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Gilbert1984](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilbert1984)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/75 "2013-05-27T08:08:28Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Your wit and originality in this political jab at the supposed illiteracy of George W. Bush is impressive. > > Plus it is not even OP correct, because your assumed word has not entered any lexicon besides that you carry in your head. That was so funny I almost choked on my pretzel. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/76 "2013-05-27T09:15:25Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I’d say the scientist examples don’t count; they’re not coining words, they’re _naming_ things. Well, yes, but they’re naming things with new words. But that doesn’t always happen for scientific things. For instance, the list of words by Ben Franklin that someone posted above were not new – they were existing words that Franklin added new meanings to. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/77 "2013-05-27T13:11:33Z")
Just came across one yesterday doing the 5/26/13 Sunday Washington Post Crossword. (Spoiler boxed in case you are planning on doing that puzzle.) Tintinnabulation: Coined by [Edgar Allan Poe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintinnabulation) for the sound of a ringing bell. Got to admit, though, that it is hardly common. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/78 "2013-05-27T13:28:59Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Ben Franklin coined **battery** , … Does this count (for the purposes of this discussion, I mean)? From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > The usage of “battery” to describe electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars (early electrical capacitors) by analogy to a battery of cannons.[ ---
**Author:** ![sco3tt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sco3tt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sco3tt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/79 "2013-05-27T22:37:19Z")
Dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson is credited by some for coining “[copacetic](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/copacetic)”, but it looks like the jury is still out on that one. I could’ve sworn I read decades ago that the word was coined by the early-20th-century boxer Jack Johnson but no amount of googling could turn up any cites. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389/80 "2013-05-27T22:50:24Z")
> [@sco3tt](#): > > Dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson is credited by some for coining “[copacetic](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/copacetic)”, but it looks like the jury is still out on that one. I’d say the jury is back and the verdict is Robinson was spinning a yarn. [The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2101/whats-the-origin-of-copacetic) > [@](#): > > According to most sources, the word was popularized by Bill “Bojangles” Robinson way back in 1919. He claimed to have coined the word when he was a shoeshine boy back in Richmond, Virginia. However according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used in that same year by Irving Bacheller in his book Man for the Ages, a biography of Abraham Lincoln. It would be an extraordinary shoeshine boy indeed that managed to get his neologism in print and used by a respected biographer of Lincoln the very same year that he’d come up with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-coined-by-famous-people/658389.md?page=5)