Lexical Compendium
Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.
Recent Entries:
- 17 Jul 2025: Streisand Effect
- 13 Jul 2025: borked
- 08 Jul 2025: Engels' Pause
neologism
A neologism is a newly coined word or expression.
(link to this entry)
References:
Date Added: 30 May 2024
Date Modified: 08 Jul 2025
phononics
Phononics is the study of the behavior and control of mechanical vibrations and acoustic waves in materials.
The word is derived from phonon (a quantum of vibrational energy in a crystal lattice, analogous to a photon in light). It seems to be a relatively new neologism, as it doesn't have an entry in conventional dictionaries.
I first came upon this word in a Science magazine article titled Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield?. The study provides experimental proof that the mantis shrimp’s club acts like a biological shock absorber, using phononic filtering to prevent damage.
(link to this entry)
References:
- Does the mantis shrimp pack a phononic shield? - Science, 387, 659–666, 2025.
Date Added: 07 Feb 2025