esquivalience

English

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New Oxford American Dictionary

Wikipedia

Etymology

Made up as a copyright trap in the 2001 New Oxford American Dictionary,^[1][2][3] and said to be related to French esquiver (“evade, dodge, duck”).^[4] Began to see actual use by 2006, after having been identified as fictitious in 2005.^[4] The entry is still present in the dictionary's third edition (2010).^[5]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɛs.kwiˈveɪ.li.əns/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: es‧qui‧val‧i‧ence

Noun

esquivalience (uncountable)

1. Deliberate shirking of one's official duties.
   • 2006, New Scientist, volume 192, numbers 2572-2577, page 62:

     The New Oxford American Dictionary, for example, defines "esquivalience" as "the wilful avoidance of one's official responsibilities" […] they were "trying to make a word that could not arise in nature". But ploughing through to result 112 of 51,800 Google search hits turned up the phrase "esquivalience in the Oval Office".

   • 2011, Alex Horne, Wordwatching: One Man's Quest for Linguistic Immortality, page 34:

     'Esquivalience', McKean explained, was chosen as a reflection of how diligently the team had grafted; they wanted to catch people who displayed ultimate esquivalience by simply copying all of their hard work.

   • 2012, Pasha Malla, People Park‎, House of Anansi Press, published 2012, →ISBN:

     What? We shouldn't? We should just leave them there? Ah, and so now after a lifetime of esquivalience you wish to play the hero!

   • 2012, Kathleen O'Reilly, Beyond Seduction‎, Mills & Boon, published 2012, →ISBN:

     There'd be no “Star-Spangled Banner,” no “America the Beautiful,” and no Elvis. If you don't stop the cuts in funding for music, that—that'd be esquivalience on your part.”

   • 2014, Dan Lewis, Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World's Most Interesting Facts, "F+W Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 71:

     One can say that Mr. Springfield's esquivalience in formulating a motto for his town via a well-known speech was disappointing. After all, one would think that Jebediah's investment in the region and in his own legacy would have compelled […]

References

1. Rochelle Lieber (2015) Introducing Morphology, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 31: “As Henry Alford reveals in the August 29, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary (2001) planted the non-existent word esquivalience (defined as “the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities”) […]”
2. John R. Taylor (2015) The Oxford Handbook of the Word, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 47: “The most famous word of this sort is esquivalience, an entry inserted in 2001 in the New Oxford American Dictionary; the non-word was later found without attribution on the online dictionary.com resource, and then taken down from that site”
3. Kate Burridge, Alexander Bergs (2016) Understanding Language Change, Routledge, →ISBN: “And it seems that modern dictionaries still occasionally use a mountweazel to flush out cheats. One famous made-up word, esquivalience, appeared in the 2001 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary.”
4. Henry Alford (2005 August 21) “Not a Word”, in The New Yorker‎, →ISSN: “esquivalience — n. the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities […] late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, 'dodge, slink away'.”
5. Angus Stevenson, Christine A. Lindberg, editors (2010), “es‧qui‧va‧li‧ence”, in New Oxford American Dictionary, third edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 591

Anagrams

• equivalencies