Ghost Words: The Dictionary’s Phantoms

We trust our dictionaries. They are the silent, steadfast arbiters of language, the final word on what is, and is not, a word. But what if I told you that these hallowed reference books have been haunted? What if, lurking between the pages of well-established vocabulary, there are phantoms—words that look and feel real but have never truly been spoken, words born from nothing more than a slip of the pen or a printer’s tired eyes? Welcome to the strange and fascinating world of “ghost words.”

A ghost word is a lexical phantom. It’s a word that has appeared in a dictionary (sometimes for centuries) but has no legitimate origin or history of use in the language. It is, quite simply, an error that gained the sheen of authenticity by being printed in an authoritative source. Once canonized in one dictionary, these ghosts were often copied unquestioningly into the next, propagating a mistake across generations of scholarship.

The Anatomy of a Lexical Ghost

These phantoms aren’t summoned by supernatural forces; they arise from mundane, all-too-human mistakes. Understanding their origins is the first step in the exorcism.

• Scribal or Typographical Errors: Before digital text, every letter was placed by hand—either by a scribe with a quill or a typesetter with metal blocks. A simple misreading of messy handwriting (“u” for “n”, “c” for “t”) or a typo could create a new, nonsensical word. If the editor missed it, it went to print.
• Misinterpretation of Spacing: Sometimes, a note in the margin or a phrase on a citation slip could be misinterpreted. A space might be missed, fusing two words into one, or a single word might be mistakenly split in two.
• False Etymology: An editor, encountering a strange word, might invent a plausible but incorrect origin story, lending the ghost an air of respectability that helps it persist.
• Copyright Traps: In rarer, more modern cases, some ghost words are intentional. Lexicographers, protective of their hard work, have been known to invent a completely fake word and definition to act as a “copyright trap”. If their fake word appeared in a competitor’s dictionary, it was a clear sign of plagiarism.

The Curious Case of “Dord”: A Ghost in the Machine

Perhaps the most famous ghost word in the English language is dord. For thirteen years, it lived a quiet, respectable life in one of America’s most prestigious dictionaries.

The story begins with the 1934 publication of the monumental Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition. On page 771, nestled between “Dorcopsis” (a type of wallaby) and “doré” (golden-brown), sat the entry:

dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Density.

It seemed plausible enough. But in 1939, an editor at G. & C. Merriam, Philip Babcock Gove, noticed something strange: the entry for “dord” had no etymology. This was a major red flag. Every word has a history, a family tree of sorts. “Dord” was an orphan.

Gove began his detective work. He delved into the dictionary’s archives, searching for the original citation slip that had prompted the word’s inclusion. He eventually found it. The slip read: “D or d”. It was intended to add “D” and “d” as abbreviations for the word “density.” But somewhere in the editorial process, the spacing was overlooked. A typist or editor had read “D or d” as a single, pronounceable word: “dord”.

The mistake was identified, and a correction slip was prepared. In 1947, the phantom was finally exorcised. The entry for “dord” was removed from the dictionary, never to return. The story of “dord” serves as the perfect illustration of how a simple clerical error can create a linguistic ghost that haunts the halls of lexicography for years.

A Rogues’ Gallery of Phantoms

“Dord” isn’t the only ghost to have rattled its chains in the dictionary. Lexicographical history is littered with them.

• Abacot: This word appeared in dictionaries for centuries, defined as an ancient English cap of state. It was eventually traced back to a misreading of the phrase “a by-cocket” in an old chronicle.
• Cairnsmore: Defined as a “type of large, flat cap”, this word was born when a lexicographer misread a label for a photograph. The photo showed a man wearing a cap, and the label identified the location as “Cairnsmore”, a hill in Scotland. The place name was mistaken for the name of the hat.
• Mumpsimus: This isn’t a true ghost word, but a wonderful related concept. It refers to a person who stubbornly adheres to a mistaken custom or belief, even after being shown it’s wrong. The word comes from a story about an old priest who, for decades, had incorrectly recited the Latin phrase “quod in ore sumpsimus, Domine” (what we have taken in the mouth, O Lord) as “quod in ore mumpsimus”. When corrected, he refused to change, stating, “I will not change my old mumpsimus for your new sumpsimus”.
• Esquivalience: This is a modern, intentional ghost—a copyright trap planted in the New Oxford American Dictionary. Its definition is “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities”. It’s a complete fabrication, designed to catch copycats in the act.

The Lexicographer as Ghostbuster

So how do we hunt these ghosts today? The work of the modern lexicographer has evolved from Philip Gove’s manual paper-chasing into a high-tech forensic science. The primary tool in their ghostbusting kit is corpus linguistics.

A corpus is a massive, searchable database of texts containing billions of words from books, newspapers, websites, journals, and transcripts of spoken language. When a lexicographer encounters a suspicious word, they can search the corpus for it. If a word like “dord” yields zero results in natural, historical use—apart from articles *about* it being a ghost word—it’s a strong sign that it never truly existed.

This data-driven approach allows editors to verify a word’s usage, track its changing meanings over time, and, most importantly, confirm that it is a living part of the language and not just a phantom born of error.

Why Ghost Words Matter

The tales of ghost words are more than just amusing linguistic trivia. They are a powerful reminder that our most authoritative sources are compiled by humans and are therefore fallible. They reveal the immense, painstaking labor that goes into creating a reliable dictionary and celebrate the scholarly detective work that keeps our language records accurate.

These lexical phantoms show us that a language is not just a static list of words in a book. It is a living, breathing, and sometimes messy entity. Dictionaries are not sacred texts handed down from on high, but rather living documents—histories of our communication that are constantly being written, revised, and, when necessary, exorcised of their ghosts.