Defined by Tom McArthur in The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) as an informal, late-20th-century term for "a word created and used to produce a special effect or attract attention, as if it were part of the performance of a stunt man or a conjuror."
Example:
"Rudyard Kipling coined the word curtiosity, which means the asking of ever so many questions. It may perish with the book in which it appeared, or it may reach a venerable age like fudge--who knows?"
(Leon Mead, Word-Coinage, 1902)
source:GrammarAbout
