dord

The word dord is a notable error in lexicography, an accidental creation, or ghost word, of the G. and C. Merriam Company's staff in the second (1934) edition of its New International Dictionary, in which the term is defined as "density".

Philip Babcock Gove, an editor at Merriam-Webster who became editor-in-chief of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, wrote a letter to the journal American Speech, fifteen years after the error was caught, in which he explained why "dord" was included in that dictionary.