dord
Sign in to saveThe word dord is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the New International Dictionary, second edition (1934). That dictionary defined the term as a synonym for density used in physics and chemistry in the following way: dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Density.
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The word dord is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the New International Dictionary, second edition (1934). That dictionary defined the term as a synonym for density used in physics and chemistry in the following way: dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Density.
Philip Babcock Gove, an editor at Merriam-Webster who became editor-in-chief of ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, wrote a letter to the journal American Speech'', fifteen years after the error was caught, in which he explained how the "dord" error was introduced and corrected.