Hapax legomenon? - Wordsmith.org

Quote:

praedormitary adjective of or relating to the twilight state of semi-consciousness immediately preceding sleep.

ORIGIN ?

I found this word in Speak, Memory by Nabokov. It gets 4 Google-hits, all from said memoir.

I prepared the definition myself, based on hypnopompic:

Quote:

hypnopompic adjective of or relating to the twilight state of semi-consciousness immediately preceding waking up.

ORIGIN from Greek hupnos "sleep" and pompe "sending away".

Is it in a dictionary? What might the origin of this wonderful word be?

you'll find that the usual contrast to hypnopompic is hypnogogic (also hypnagogic), thus obviating any need for this word.

edit: dormitary is an obsolete term for sleep-inducing; cf. dormitive -- so pre- and post- could follow, perforce.

So do you think Nabokov just made it up?

why not? someone has to do these things!

Originally Posted By: Hydra

Is it in a dictionary? What might the origin of this wonderful word be?

You want to give us the context from the Nabokov?

So do you think Nabokov just made it up?

Yes. He was a master of language. He is one of the few authors I can think of who is (rightly) famous for works that he wrote in two different languages: i.e., Russian and English. He is credited with having coined the word nymphet.

Quote:

You want to give us the context from the Nabokov?

Well, it's defininitely not a hapax legomenon... I just came across it in a short story, also by Nabokov.

Here's your context:

Quote:

Just before falling sleep, I often became aware of a one-sided conversation going on in an adjacent section of my mind, quite independent from the actual trend of my thoughts. It is a neutral, detached, anonymous voice, which I catch saying words of no importance to me whatever�an English or a Russian sentence, not even addressed to me, and so trivial that I hardly dare give samples, lest the flatness I wish to convey be marred by a molehill of sense. This silly phenomenon seems to be the auditory counterpart of certain praedormitary visions, which I also know well.

�Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, p.28.

Quote:

Presently he sleeps, he sleeps, and, since, on his convict's cot, not a single praedormitory thought troubles him ...

�Tyrants Destroyed, ch. 14.