"false name," especially a fictitious name assumed by an author to conceal identity, 1828, in part a back-formation from pseudonymous, in part from German pseudonym and French pseudonyme (adj.), from Greek pseudōnymos "having a false name, under a false name," from pseudēs "false" (see pseudo-) + onyma, Aeolic dialectal variant of onoma "name" (from PIE root *no-men- "name").
"Possibly a dictionary word" at first [Barnhart]. Fowler calls it "a queer out-of-the-way term for an everyday thing." Properly in reference to made-up names; the name of an actual author or person of reputation affixed to a work he or she did not write is an allonym. An author's actual name affixed to his or her own work is an autonym (1867). Related: Pseudonymity.
"bearing a false name," 1706, from Modern Latin pseudonymus, from Greek pseudōnymos "falsely named, falsely called" (see pseudonym). Related: Pseudonymously.
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "name."
It forms all or part of: acronym; allonym; ananym; anonymous; antonomasia; antonym; binomial; caconym; cognomen; denominate; eponym; eponymous; heteronym; homonym; homonymous; hyponymy; ignominious; ignominy; innominable; Jerome; matronymic; metonymy; metronymic; misnomer; moniker; name; nomenclature; nominal; nominate; noun; onomastic; onomatopoeia; paronomasia; paronym; patronym; patronymic; praenomen; pronoun; pseudonym; renown; synonym; synonymy; synonymous; toponym.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit nama; Avestan nama; Greek onoma, onyma; Latin nomen; Old Church Slavonic ime, genitive imene; Russian imya; Old Irish ainm; Old Welsh anu "name;" Old English nama, noma, Old High German namo, Old Norse nafn, Gothic namo "name."
masc. proper name, variant of Marcus (q.v.). Among the top 10 names given to boy babies born in the U.S. between 1955 and 1970.
Mark Twain is the pseudonym of American writer and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who had been a riverboat pilot; he took his pen name from the cry mark twain, the call indicating a depth of two fathoms, from mark (n.1) in a specialized sense of "measured notification (a piece of knotted cloth, etc.) on a lead-line indicating fathoms of depth" (1769) + twain.
French for "name" (9c.), from Latin nomen (see nominal). It is used in various phrases in English, such as nom de guerre (1670s) "fictitious name used by a person engaged in some action," literally "war name" and formerly in France a name taken by a soldier on entering the service, and nom de théâtre "stage name" (1874). Nom de plume (1823) "pseudonym used by a writer," literally "pen name," is a phrase invented in English in imitation of nom de guerre. Fowler suggests it is "ridiculous for English writers to use a French phrase that does not come from France."
"characteristic or suggestive of the writings of George Orwell," 1950 (first attested in Mary McCarthy), from English author George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair, 1903-1950), especially in reference to his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949). It has come to be used in reference to the totalitarian systems he satirized and inveighed against.
It is as if George Orwell had conceived the nightmare instead of analyzed it, helped to create it instead of helping to dispel its euphemistic thrall. [Clive James, "The All of Orwell," 2001]
The surname is attested from late Old English, from place names, either "spring by the point" (of land), or "stream of the (river) Orwe," a variant form ofarrow.
