paleologism

• palaeologism, palæologism

paleo- +‎ -logism, from Ancient Greek: παλαιός (palaiós, “old”) in combination with λόγος (lógos, “word”).

paleologism (plural paleologisms)

1. A word or phrase that was coined in the distant past, often now obscured, or if recently used: possibly having a definition or implication different from that of any earlier usage.
   • 1964, Charles William Wahl, New Dimensions in Psychosomatic Medicine, page 41:

     Another is the paleologism of pars pro toto in which a part of an organ or function can symbolize the whole organ or concept; eg, the stomach may be the locus of difficulty with a patient with a history of frustrated dependency needs because of its association with the process of being fed and loved by the mother.

   • 1995, John Llewelyn, Emmanuel Levinas: The Genealogy of Ethics‎, →ISBN, page 163:

     Levinas seems to be offering new words or newly burnished words for old, those apparent semantic neologisms are more like pre-semantic paleologisms.

   • 2006, Philippe Roger as, translated by Sharon Bowman, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism‎, →ISBN, page 252:

     The word trust is in no way a neologism. On the contrary, it is a kind of paleologism, a primitive signifier, "a word from a barbarian time."

2. An obsolete term.

• neologism

• paleologist

• Megalopolis, megalopolis