Can the back-formation "far-minded" be far behind?.    From Wordnik.com.  [More about Laura talking dirty.] Reference

This kind of neologism is called a “back-formation.”.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » How New Words Often Come About:] Reference

So it's easy to do the back-formation back to "Chee-lay.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Expat Foul!] Reference

That has to be a back-formation from “disbarred,” no?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » Barred] Reference

Etymology: French idéologue, back-formation from idéologie.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » Jonathan Rauch on David Frum on the Conservative Movement] Reference

Another everyday example is burgle, a back-formation from burglary.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

You are unlikely to recognise a back-formation just by looking at it.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

And “carjack” itself is of course a back-formation from “hijack”.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » How New Words Often Come About:] Reference

The process is called back-formation; wikipedia has a nice overview of the topic.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2006-02-01] Reference

It also refers to the words themselves, so back-formations result from back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

The usage of "verse" as a back-formation from "versus" has become widespread even among adults.    From Wordnik.com.  [languagehat.com: BUDGE/VERSE.] Reference

The Wikipedia entry for “back-formation” has hundreds of examples, most of them verbs created fromnouns.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » How New Words Often Come About:] Reference

You might think it derives from donate, but the noun is several centuries older; donate is the back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

The process of creating new words by removing supposed endings is called “back-formation” by the linguists.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » “Is Not a Word”:] Reference

Followup here: it seems people do in fact use the back-formation ginger as an adjective, though not very often.    From Wordnik.com.  [languagehat.com: GINGER(LY).] Reference

Fascinating to see our technological back-formation going on here, with "vast wasteland" being reconceived as hearth.    From Wordnik.com.  [Information, Culture, Policy, Education: The dangers of social networking sites: Lady Greenfield is concerned] Reference

Which is probably just as well, as 'Scota' looks so obvious a back-formation made up to explain the name of the Scots.    From Wordnik.com.  [Kingdom of the Ark, by Lorraine Evans. Book review] Reference

So, to summarise: we have inaccurate S-J ateji used to write a verb which is a back-formation from a legitimate S-J word.    From Wordnik.com.  [languagehat.com: MORE JAPANESE VERBING.] Reference

English may be partly a result of its lowly origins as a back-formation, as well as its funny phonetic blend of burble and gurgle.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

Sometimes a back-formation arises through the assumption that it must already exist, and that its source word is the derivative term.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference

However, there are also several references to 'my Dominican friends' which might have led Geertz to 'Dominica' as a sort of back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [languagehat.com: DOMINICA.] Reference

As the plural form was reduced to pease, the same as the singular, in about 1600 the back-formation pea was assumed as the separate singular form.    From Wordnik.com.  [10 posts from January 2007] Reference

Etymology: probably back-formation from eavesdropper, literally, one standing under the drip from the eaves (= the lower border of a roof that overhangs the wall).    From Wordnik.com.  [Bessie Smith Lyrics] Reference

And who can blame the impulse for back-formation amidst bombarment by monstrosities like "prioritizationalizing", which you hate to admit even to yourself that you understand?.    From Wordnik.com.  [languagehat.com: THE PERILS OF A FANCY VOCABULARY.] Reference

Most of the time, I can't show you my work, unless I make it up by back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Aliens in This World] Reference

To renig, a few years before, had been fashioned, as a matter of course, from renegade by back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Chapter 6. Tendencies in American. 3. Processes of Word-Formation] Reference

Also, we talked about how awesome it is that escalate is a back-formation of escalator, so it's actually a modern word!.    From Wordnik.com.  [MetaFilter] Reference

This production of new words by clipping, back-formation and folk-etymology is quite as active among the verbs as among the nouns.    From Wordnik.com.  [Chapter 6. Tendencies in American. 3. Processes of Word-Formation] Reference

Relevant to all this are mediocratization, used in Esquire in 1970, and its back-formation, mediocratize, used in The New York Times Magazine in 1972.    From Wordnik.com.  [VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XX No 1] Reference

In my high school, we got to see back-formation in action, though I don’t think many of use appreciated it at the time.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » How New Words Often Come About:] Reference

Re “inflammable”: IIRC it’s “flammable” that’s the back-formation, a word invented because some people took “inflammable” to mean “unburnable.”.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » “Is Not a Word”:] Reference

Not a back-formation, and not a problem forme.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Volokh Conspiracy » Barred] Reference

“Advert” is a back-formation from “advertise”.    From Wordnik.com.  [The LOLCat Gods Are Not Amused « Whatever] Reference

Er and in forms that are less likely to be assimilation followed by back-formation.    From Wordnik.com.  [VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol III No 2] Reference

It's a back-formation from "wacky.".    From Wordnik.com.  [The Washington Post says the Supreme Court's mistake requires it to reconsider the ban on the death penalty for rape of a child.] Reference

9 Comments | etymology, language, morphology | Tagged: grammar, language, etymology, philology, back-formation, morphology, affixation | Permalink.    From Wordnik.com.  [April « 2009 « Sentence first] Reference