What is a "dord"?

Picture yourself in the early 1930's. Imagine you work for a publishing company that prints dictionaries. As you picture this, think of how dificult it would be to create a dictionary without using a computer. Difficult to imagine? Impossible? Well, that's how things were done. In this post, we're going to specifically look at the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary from 1934. In this particular dictionary, on page 771, there appeared an entry for the word "dord". What is a dord?
 The only definition given is for density, and the word is used in physics and chemistry, and other than being a noun, there is no other information given. That's because the word didn't exist.

The story for this "ghost word" began in 1931. At that time, abbreviations and words were comingled, but the next edition would have abbreviations in their own separate section of the dictionary. When the list of abbreviations were being compiled, there was one notation that was added into the pile: "D or d, cont/ density". This meant that the next edition (the 2nd edition from 1934) would include an abbreviation for density, using "D or d". Somehow, that notation ended up in the words pile, and dord was born.

It wasn't until five years later that an editor noticed the word and began the process to pull the word from future printings. Other dictionaries that weren't as careful still had the word for a few more years. So, not only was dord not a real word, it made it into dictionaries and then stayed in them for a few years. It's true that mistakes are made in dictionaries, but none are as humorous of a mistake as this one.

Bet you didn't know that!