when a word is repeated so frequently that it eventually loses its meaning? This may also be a literary device.

This is my first post!

- Lucy

one possibility: verbigeration, the senseless repetition of stereotyped phrases

Perhaps.

However, the word I am looking for would define or describe the loss of meaning in the word due to constant repetition more so than the act of repeating the word.

Hi, Lucy--welcome. I think there is a word for this, but darned if I know what it is. Can you give an example?

I think that the most relevant example is the use of the word "maverick" by John McCain and Sarah Palin. (I saw that there was a post about the word specifically at one point.) It seems that the definition of the word has been lost, become meaningless, and is being appropriated by McCain and Palin and thus redefined.

But I am also interested in what happens at a more basic level. Like when you say a word over and over again out loud and it begins to sound different. Eventually it becomes just that- a sound. The meaning dissolves.

which sounds like its related to embiggen.

I'd call it defdeflation and my goodness, are you so sparsely dressed.

are you so sparsely dressed.

Indeed!

Doesn't hackneyed fit in here somewhere? You know, like hacknification? :0)

hackney - vt. to make trite, common, or stale by frequent use; hence, hackneying, hackneyism

So common hackney'd in the eyes of men - Shakespeare, Henry IV

charette/charrette

My daughter (grad school) is participating in a charette, a three-day gathering during which something is designed in three days that might normally take a year. Sometimes this event takes place worldwide. I found a word closely resembling "charrette," meaning cart, in a French dictionary. Found nothing in an English dictionary. Can you help? Thanks.

Try this one: charrette It seems to have some relevance. See what you think. :0)

There's some things I'll trust Wikipedia for, but etymology isn't one of them. It's a good sounding story and may well be true, but so are a lot of folk etymologies. I'd like to see some more reliable source quoted. Wordorigins is a good place to go to ask this question.

OED3(?) seems to have bought into something like that:

DRAFT ADDITIONS JUNE 2007

charet, n.

* Chiefly N. Amer. (orig. Archit.). A period of intense (group) work, typically undertaken in order to meet a deadline. Also: a collaborative workshop focusing on a particular problem or project; (Town Planning) a public meeting or conference devoted to discussion of a proposed community building project.
[Probably originally with reference to the former custom among French architecture students of using a cart to carry their work on the day of an exhibition: see Trésor de la Langue Française s.v. charrette.]

OED I'll believe.

I do agree, in an "expert's" sense, but here I was attempting to respond to a term that was probably not chosen by an etymologist, and therefore may have more in common with the folk etymologies than would OED, whether any of it is "correct" or not. :0)

see Trésor de la Langue Française s.v. charrette

That's weird. If you follow the link from the site linked in the Wikipedia article, they give a different origin for charrette. Both Wikipedia and the OED cite the Trésor de la Langue Française. This is one idiomatic meaning, but it retains its primary, unchanged meaning of cart, too. The citation is from the 1960s, and no mention is made of the École des Beaux Arts. So, rather than losing its meaning (has any word done that?), it's gained another one (many have done that!).

In NYC Charette is a small collection (2? 3?) of stores at various locations, that specialize in architect's supplies..

they also (or used to) have a contest for budding architects every year.

what about nice? it no longer has its 'original' meaning and some might say it has very little meaning at all these days.

what about nice?

Nope. I find that nice still means something (link). I, personally, have never understood the anti-nice word-police or their gripe.

but it has still lost its original meaning hasnt it? it has gained a new one but the new one is instead of the old one not in addition to it no?

but it has still lost its original meaning hasnt it? it has gained a new one but the new one is instead of the old one not in addition to it no?

In that sense most words have lost their meaning. The way I read the OP was asking if a word lost its meaning by frequent use. Maybe I misinterpreted the question.