Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Such word creation is fairly common in science fiction and fantasy, but these aren't quite the same thing, are they? They're mostly names for new things or new or developing concepts. Boredom was hardly a new concept. But I have to ask: how did readers know what Dickens meant? What was the derivation that allowed them to understand this first usage? (I can understand how "around the clock" and "red tape" may be understandable, given context and familiarity with the period, but boredom?)
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The verb "to bore" existed previously, and the adjective "bored". It was the noun "boredom", which I guess means "the state of being bored", which Dickens coined.