latent word

A word which the rules of grammar would tend to suggest exists, and which sounds 'right' or at least plausible, but which nonetheless is not a recognized part of the language. An example is squoze, which I and others have suggested is the latent past tense of the verb 'to squeeze'. Three possible indicators of a latent word might be:

• The intended meaning is obvious even on a first hearing.
• It is in occasional independent usage by a large number of people (try asking a few friends what 'squoze' means).
• A child in the formative years of speech might, by means of intelligent guesswork, mistakenly use it in place of a 'real' word.