# esquivalience
## English
### Etymology

Made up as a copyright trap in the 2001 New Oxford American Dictionary, and said to be related to French esquiver (“evade, dodge, duck”). Began to see actual use by 2006, after having been identified as fictitious in 2005. The entry is still present in the dictionary's third edition (2010).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˌɛs.kwiˈveɪ.li.əns/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: es‧qui‧val‧i‧ence

### Noun

esquivalience (uncountable)
* Deliberate shirking of one's official duties.
** 2006, New Scientist, volume 192, numbers 2572-2577, page 62:The New Oxford American Dictionary, for example, defines "esquivalience" as "the wilful avoidance of one's official responsibilities" […] they were "trying to make a word that could not arise in nature". But ploughing through to result 112 of 51,800 Google search hits turned up the phrase "esquivalience in the Oval Office".
** 2011, Alex Horne, Wordwatching: One Man's Quest for Linguistic Immortality, page 34:'Esquivalience', McKean explained, was chosen as a reflection of how diligently the team had grafted; they wanted to catch people who displayed ultimate esquivalience by simply copying all of their hard work.
** 2012, Pasha Malla, People Park‎, House of Anansi Press, published 2012, →ISBN:What? We shouldn't? We should just leave them there? Ah, and so now after a lifetime of esquivalience you wish to play the hero!
** 2012, Kathleen O'Reilly, Beyond Seduction‎, Mills & Boon, published 2012, →ISBN:There'd be no “Star-Spangled Banner,” no “America the Beautiful,” and no Elvis. If you don't stop the cuts in funding for music, that—that'd be esquivalience on your part.”
** 2014, Dan Lewis, Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World's Most Interesting Facts, "F+W Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 71:One can say that Mr. Springfield's esquivalience in formulating a motto for his town via a well-known speech was disappointing. After all, one would think that Jebediah's investment in the region and in his own legacy would have compelled […]

### References

* ↑ Rochelle Lieber (2015) Introducing Morphology, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 31: “As Henry Alford reveals in the August 29, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary (2001) planted the non-existent word esquivalience (defined as “the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities”) […]”
* ↑ John R. Taylor (2015) The Oxford Handbook of the Word, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 47: “The most famous word of this sort is esquivalience, an entry inserted in 2001 in the New Oxford American Dictionary; the non-word was later found without attribution on the online dictionary.com resource, and then taken down from that site”
* ↑ Kate Burridge, Alexander Bergs (2016) Understanding Language Change, Routledge, →ISBN: “And it seems that modern dictionaries still occasionally use a mountweazel to flush out cheats. One famous made-up word, esquivalience, appeared in the 2001 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary.”
* 1 2 Henry Alford (2005 August 21) “Not a Word”, in The New Yorker‎, →ISSN: “esquivalience — n. the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities […] late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, 'dodge, slink away'.”
* ↑ Angus Stevenson, Christine A. Lindberg, editors (2010), “es‧qui‧va‧li‧ence”, in New Oxford American Dictionary, third edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 591

### Anagrams

* equivalencies