Tolkien and the 'other' N-word ;)

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Most notable to me are the words Tolkien invented himself: eucatastrophe and dyscatastrophe.

[Kath]

eucatastrophe

Did he really invent that because I thought it was invented long before Tolkien was around, by a psychologist, though my teacher could be telling me lies.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

As far as I know, it was Tolkien's own word. I'm not a linguist though, so I checked it with several online sources. The Merriam-Webster dictionary tells me it's not in the dictionary, ergo not a known word. The Google references I got were all to Tolkien's usage. Wikipedia has this:

Eucatastrophe is a term coined by J.R.R. Tolkien which refers to the sudden turn of events at the end of a story which result in the protagonist's well-being.

As far as I can see, though there is certainly a linguistic background for the word, it was his own invention and has not been used by others except in reference to him. If someone knows more about it, though, I hope they'll tell us!