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In English a nonce word is one coined on the spur of the moment. It works in its context but may never be used again.

To what Italian term does nonce word correspond?

Or, maybe, in Italian the nonce word phenomenon doesn't exist and so there is no parallel term.

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    it may be worth noting that when talking about cryptography the term nonce is usually not translated in Italian. – Agos Nov 28 '13 at 16:03
9

According to Treccani dictionary it would be "occasionalismo", reported also on Wikipedia. I'm not sure how popular the notion is in Italian though. "Hapax" is a related notion (here on Wikipedia).

Note that Treccani Encyclopedia mentions "occasionalismo" only as a philosophical doctrine (here on Wikipedia).

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  • the Treccani dictionary reports both uses treccani.it/vocabolario/occasionalismo – mucio Nov 27 '13 at 13:31
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    I thought that hapax (legomenon) was used for a word which is found only once in the corpus of a dead language. Does anyone use it for a current language? – mau Dec 3 '13 at 12:52

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