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It’s pretty rare to be able to trace1 a word’s invention back to a single person. Most words develop slowly， over time， and are shaped by entire cultures， not individual people.
And then there are the words that were invented by authors. This occasionally happens when an author combines root words from different languages， old names， and/or nonsense syllables to create character names， place names， or names for concepts that have never been imagined before， and slowly those names creep into common usage.2
Here are six common English words that were first invented by authors.
1. Chortle， Lewis Carroll3
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock？ 4
Come to my arms， my beamish5 boy！
O frabjous day！ Callooh！ Callay！”6
He chortled in his joy.
Carroll’s Jabberwocky—which first appeared as a poem read by Alice in Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There， the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—is chock-full of7 nonsense words， but only one of them made the jump to the English language. Perhaps that’s because “chortled”suggests both“chuckled”and “snorted，”making it easy to intuit the meaning in a way you can’t quite do with“brillig.”8
2. Pandemonium， John Milton9
Mean while the winged Haralds by command
Of Sovran power， with awful Ceremony
And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim
A solemn Councel forthwith to be held
At Pand?monium， the high Capital
Of Satan and his Peers…10
In Paradise Lost， Milton named the capital city of Hell Pand?monium， but he didn’t invent the name out of thin air11. He used classical roots： the Greek “pan，”meaning all，and the Latin “demonium，” or demons12. Together they mean “the place with all the demons.” Today， of course， pandemonium describes the chaos that results when all hell breaks loose.13
3. Malapropism， Richard Brinsley Sheridan14
I’ll take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop， when she shall treat me， as long as she chooses， with her select words so ingeniously15 misapplied， without being mispronounced.
Mrs. Malaprop is a character in the 18th-century Irish play The Rivals who delights in elaborate， polysyllabic words and constantly misuses them.16 “He is the very pineapple17 of politeness！” she cries. “His physiognomy is so grammatical！”18 Her name comes from the French phrase mal à propos，which means inopportunely19 or inappropriately， but in English a “malapropism” is now specifically a misused word， in honor of Mrs. Malaprop. 4. Robot， Karel ?apek20
What young Rossum invented was a worker with the least needs possible. He had to make him simpler. He threw out everything that wasn’t of direct use in his work， that’s to say， he threw out the man and put in the robot. Miss Glory， robots are not people. They are mechanically 21 much better than we are， they have an amazing ability to understand things， but they don’t have a soul.
“Robot”comes from the Czech word “robotnik，” meaning serf or slave.22 In R.U.R. （Rossum’s Universal Robots），robots are artificial people designed to perform hard labor， until （spoiler alert！） they rise up in rebellion against the human race.23 ?apek’s robots are not robots in the modern sense of the term—their artificial skin and organs make them physically indistinguishable from regular humans， closer to cyborgs than to modern robots—but R.U.R.’s translation into English in 1923 marks the moment when the fantasy of what had previously been called automatons became the fantasy of the robot.24
5. Serendipity， Horace Walpole25
This discovery， indeed， is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity， a very expressive word， which， as I have nothing better to tell you， I shall endeavour to explain to you： you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition.26 I once read a silly fairy tale， called The Three Princes of Serendip： as their Highnesses travelled， they were always making discoveries， by accidents and sagacity， of things which they were not in quest of： for instance， one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately， because the grass was eaten only on the left side， where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand Serendipity？ 27
This one comes not from a book but from a letter. Horace Walpole， the author of the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto， wrote to a friend in 1754 with news of the exciting new word he’d invented， drawing from a fairy tale set in Serendip， an old name for Sri Lanka.28 Serendipity， the faculty29 or instance of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident， is often considered one of the most difficult-to-translate words in the English language.
6. Utopia， Thomas More30
The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates31 from them Neighbors； but those to whom they have been of more particular service， Friends； and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or breaking them， they never enter into an alliance with any state.32 They think leagues are useless things， and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together， the faith of promises will have no great effect； and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them， who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties.33 10. 那时长着翅膀的天使们，在元首的命令下，用威严的仪式和号筒的声响，向全体官兵传达消息，宣布在元首撒旦和大天使们的最高首府，“万魔殿”开一个严肃的会议……（朱维之译版）。sovran： 君主，最高统治者；trumpet： 喇叭，小号；proclaim： 宣布，声明；solemn： 严肃的，郑重的；Councel： 指council，会议； forthwith： 立刻； Satan： 撒旦； peer： 同地位的人。
11. out of thin air： 无中生有地，凭空地。
12. demon： 魔鬼，恶魔。
13. chaos： 混乱，无序；all hell breaks loose： 灾难降临，倒霉透顶。
14. malapropism：（荒唐可笑的）用词错误；Richard Brinsley Sheridan： 理查德·布林斯利·谢里丹（1751—1816），英国杰出的社会风俗喜剧作家，代表作为《对手》（The Rivals）。
15. ingeniously： 别出心裁地。
16. delight in： 以……为乐；elaborate： 精心制作的；polysyllabic： 多音节的。
17. pineapple： 此处指对pinnacle的误用， pineapple意为“菠萝”，pinnacle意为“顶峰，巅峰”。
18. physiognomy： 此处指对phraseology的误用，physiognomy意为“外貌，面相”，phraseology意为“措辞，用词”； grammatical： 符合语法的。
19. inopportunely： 不合时宜地。
20. Karel ?apek： 卡雷尔·恰佩克（1890—1938），捷克著名的剧作家和科幻文学家、童话寓言家，代表作有科幻小说《鲵鱼之乱》（War with the Newts）以及科幻戏剧《罗素姆万能机器人》[R.U.R. （Rossum’s Universal Robots）]。
21. mechanically： 机械地。
22. Czech： 捷克；serf： 农奴。
23. spoiler alert： 剧透警告；rise up： 起义，反抗；rebellion： 反抗。
24. 恰佩克的robots并不是现代意义上的机器人——他们的人造皮肤和器官使他们看起来与常人并无差异，他们更接近电子人，而不是现代的机器人——但是1923年《罗素姆万能机器人》被翻译成英文版标志着人们以前对于自动操作机器的幻想转变成了对机器人的幻想。artificial： 人工的，人造的；indistinguishable： 难以分辨的，无法区分的；cyborg： 电子人，半机械人；automaton： 自动操作装置。
25. serendipity： 意外发现有趣（或有用）之物；Horace Walpole： 霍勒斯·沃波尔（1717—1797），英国作家，代表作有哥特式小说《奥特兰托城堡》（The Castle of Otranto），他一生写了大约4，000封信，其中一些被认为是英语语言中最杰出的文字。
26. endeavour to do sth.： 努力去做某事；derivation： 起源，词源。
27. Highness： 陛下，殿下；sagacity： 聪慧，精明；in quest of： 探寻，寻求；mule： 骡子。
28. gothic： 哥特式的；Sri Lanka： 斯里兰卡。
29. faculty： 天赋，能力。
30. utopia： 乌托邦；Thomas More： 托马斯·莫尔（1478—1535），欧洲早期空想社会主义学说的创始人，才华横溢的人文主义学者和阅历丰富的政治家，以其名著《乌托邦》而名垂史册。
31. magistrate： 地方法官。
32. perpetually： 无休止地，长期地；alliance： 结盟，同盟。
33. 他们认为结盟毫无用处，并坚信如果人性共同纽带不能将人类连接在一起，那么信仰承诺也不会有多大作用。当他们看到周遭那些没有严格遵守联盟与条约的国家时，便对这一观点更加坚信不疑了。knit：（使）结合在一起；observer： 遵守者；treaty： 条约。
34. civilization： 文明社会，文明国家；nowhere near： 远不及；antonym： 反义词；dystopia： 反乌托邦，指充满丑恶与不幸之地。
35. bonus： 额外得到的东西，意外的好处。
36. myth： 荒诞传说，无根据之观念；swagger： 昂首阔步，吹牛；puke： 呕吐；dawn： 黎明。
37. 在编纂第一版《牛津英语词典》时，词典编纂者不得不煞费苦心地亲手翻阅每个文本，以找到词典中每个词最初的记录来源。edition： 版本，版次；compile： 汇编，编纂；lexicographer： 词典编纂者；painstakingly： 仔细地，煞费苦心地；scan： 细看。
38. with the advent of： 随着……的出现； computerized： 用计算机完成的；dethrone： 使失去重要地位；etymological： 词源；entry： 词条。
39. scale： 程度，规模；coin： 编造，杜撰（新词语）； butterfingers： 拿不稳东西的人。
40. wring sth. out of： 费力地从……中取得某物；worn-out： 旧的。
And then there are the words that were invented by authors. This occasionally happens when an author combines root words from different languages， old names， and/or nonsense syllables to create character names， place names， or names for concepts that have never been imagined before， and slowly those names creep into common usage.2
Here are six common English words that were first invented by authors.
1. Chortle， Lewis Carroll3
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock？ 4
Come to my arms， my beamish5 boy！
O frabjous day！ Callooh！ Callay！”6
He chortled in his joy.
Carroll’s Jabberwocky—which first appeared as a poem read by Alice in Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There， the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—is chock-full of7 nonsense words， but only one of them made the jump to the English language. Perhaps that’s because “chortled”suggests both“chuckled”and “snorted，”making it easy to intuit the meaning in a way you can’t quite do with“brillig.”8
2. Pandemonium， John Milton9
Mean while the winged Haralds by command
Of Sovran power， with awful Ceremony
And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim
A solemn Councel forthwith to be held
At Pand?monium， the high Capital
Of Satan and his Peers…10
In Paradise Lost， Milton named the capital city of Hell Pand?monium， but he didn’t invent the name out of thin air11. He used classical roots： the Greek “pan，”meaning all，and the Latin “demonium，” or demons12. Together they mean “the place with all the demons.” Today， of course， pandemonium describes the chaos that results when all hell breaks loose.13
3. Malapropism， Richard Brinsley Sheridan14
I’ll take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop， when she shall treat me， as long as she chooses， with her select words so ingeniously15 misapplied， without being mispronounced.
Mrs. Malaprop is a character in the 18th-century Irish play The Rivals who delights in elaborate， polysyllabic words and constantly misuses them.16 “He is the very pineapple17 of politeness！” she cries. “His physiognomy is so grammatical！”18 Her name comes from the French phrase mal à propos，which means inopportunely19 or inappropriately， but in English a “malapropism” is now specifically a misused word， in honor of Mrs. Malaprop. 4. Robot， Karel ?apek20
What young Rossum invented was a worker with the least needs possible. He had to make him simpler. He threw out everything that wasn’t of direct use in his work， that’s to say， he threw out the man and put in the robot. Miss Glory， robots are not people. They are mechanically 21 much better than we are， they have an amazing ability to understand things， but they don’t have a soul.
“Robot”comes from the Czech word “robotnik，” meaning serf or slave.22 In R.U.R. （Rossum’s Universal Robots），robots are artificial people designed to perform hard labor， until （spoiler alert！） they rise up in rebellion against the human race.23 ?apek’s robots are not robots in the modern sense of the term—their artificial skin and organs make them physically indistinguishable from regular humans， closer to cyborgs than to modern robots—but R.U.R.’s translation into English in 1923 marks the moment when the fantasy of what had previously been called automatons became the fantasy of the robot.24
5. Serendipity， Horace Walpole25
This discovery， indeed， is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity， a very expressive word， which， as I have nothing better to tell you， I shall endeavour to explain to you： you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition.26 I once read a silly fairy tale， called The Three Princes of Serendip： as their Highnesses travelled， they were always making discoveries， by accidents and sagacity， of things which they were not in quest of： for instance， one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately， because the grass was eaten only on the left side， where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand Serendipity？ 27
This one comes not from a book but from a letter. Horace Walpole， the author of the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto， wrote to a friend in 1754 with news of the exciting new word he’d invented， drawing from a fairy tale set in Serendip， an old name for Sri Lanka.28 Serendipity， the faculty29 or instance of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident， is often considered one of the most difficult-to-translate words in the English language.
6. Utopia， Thomas More30
The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates31 from them Neighbors； but those to whom they have been of more particular service， Friends； and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or breaking them， they never enter into an alliance with any state.32 They think leagues are useless things， and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together， the faith of promises will have no great effect； and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them， who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties.33 10. 那时长着翅膀的天使们，在元首的命令下，用威严的仪式和号筒的声响，向全体官兵传达消息，宣布在元首撒旦和大天使们的最高首府，“万魔殿”开一个严肃的会议……（朱维之译版）。sovran： 君主，最高统治者；trumpet： 喇叭，小号；proclaim： 宣布，声明；solemn： 严肃的，郑重的；Councel： 指council，会议； forthwith： 立刻； Satan： 撒旦； peer： 同地位的人。
11. out of thin air： 无中生有地，凭空地。
12. demon： 魔鬼，恶魔。
13. chaos： 混乱，无序；all hell breaks loose： 灾难降临，倒霉透顶。
14. malapropism：（荒唐可笑的）用词错误；Richard Brinsley Sheridan： 理查德·布林斯利·谢里丹（1751—1816），英国杰出的社会风俗喜剧作家，代表作为《对手》（The Rivals）。
15. ingeniously： 别出心裁地。
16. delight in： 以……为乐；elaborate： 精心制作的；polysyllabic： 多音节的。
17. pineapple： 此处指对pinnacle的误用， pineapple意为“菠萝”，pinnacle意为“顶峰，巅峰”。
18. physiognomy： 此处指对phraseology的误用，physiognomy意为“外貌，面相”，phraseology意为“措辞，用词”； grammatical： 符合语法的。
19. inopportunely： 不合时宜地。
20. Karel ?apek： 卡雷尔·恰佩克（1890—1938），捷克著名的剧作家和科幻文学家、童话寓言家，代表作有科幻小说《鲵鱼之乱》（War with the Newts）以及科幻戏剧《罗素姆万能机器人》[R.U.R. （Rossum’s Universal Robots）]。
21. mechanically： 机械地。
22. Czech： 捷克；serf： 农奴。
23. spoiler alert： 剧透警告；rise up： 起义，反抗；rebellion： 反抗。
24. 恰佩克的robots并不是现代意义上的机器人——他们的人造皮肤和器官使他们看起来与常人并无差异，他们更接近电子人，而不是现代的机器人——但是1923年《罗素姆万能机器人》被翻译成英文版标志着人们以前对于自动操作机器的幻想转变成了对机器人的幻想。artificial： 人工的，人造的；indistinguishable： 难以分辨的，无法区分的；cyborg： 电子人，半机械人；automaton： 自动操作装置。
25. serendipity： 意外发现有趣（或有用）之物；Horace Walpole： 霍勒斯·沃波尔（1717—1797），英国作家，代表作有哥特式小说《奥特兰托城堡》（The Castle of Otranto），他一生写了大约4，000封信，其中一些被认为是英语语言中最杰出的文字。
26. endeavour to do sth.： 努力去做某事；derivation： 起源，词源。
27. Highness： 陛下，殿下；sagacity： 聪慧，精明；in quest of： 探寻，寻求；mule： 骡子。
28. gothic： 哥特式的；Sri Lanka： 斯里兰卡。
29. faculty： 天赋，能力。
30. utopia： 乌托邦；Thomas More： 托马斯·莫尔（1478—1535），欧洲早期空想社会主义学说的创始人，才华横溢的人文主义学者和阅历丰富的政治家，以其名著《乌托邦》而名垂史册。
31. magistrate： 地方法官。
32. perpetually： 无休止地，长期地；alliance： 结盟，同盟。
33. 他们认为结盟毫无用处，并坚信如果人性共同纽带不能将人类连接在一起，那么信仰承诺也不会有多大作用。当他们看到周遭那些没有严格遵守联盟与条约的国家时，便对这一观点更加坚信不疑了。knit：（使）结合在一起；observer： 遵守者；treaty： 条约。
34. civilization： 文明社会，文明国家；nowhere near： 远不及；antonym： 反义词；dystopia： 反乌托邦，指充满丑恶与不幸之地。
35. bonus： 额外得到的东西，意外的好处。
36. myth： 荒诞传说，无根据之观念；swagger： 昂首阔步，吹牛；puke： 呕吐；dawn： 黎明。
37. 在编纂第一版《牛津英语词典》时，词典编纂者不得不煞费苦心地亲手翻阅每个文本，以找到词典中每个词最初的记录来源。edition： 版本，版次；compile： 汇编，编纂；lexicographer： 词典编纂者；painstakingly： 仔细地，煞费苦心地；scan： 细看。
38. with the advent of： 随着……的出现； computerized： 用计算机完成的；dethrone： 使失去重要地位；etymological： 词源；entry： 词条。
39. scale： 程度，规模；coin： 编造，杜撰（新词语）； butterfingers： 拿不稳东西的人。
40. wring sth. out of： 费力地从……中取得某物；worn-out： 旧的。