Akademik

v.

To decline sharply in value or quantity.

"Yet while his quarterback rating has Nasdaqed, Griese has been criticized for not making enough big plays."

— Adam Schefter, "Myriad reasons account for Broncos' recent slide," The Denver Post, October 28, 2001

"U.S. investors sold the stock because the company put out a release that Monday that forecast lower earnings. Fact is Newbridge was Nasdaqed. The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations electronic market is an intensely volatile marketplace that often metes out swift, frontier-style justice to stocks that look vulnerable and that overgenerously rewards its favorites."

— William Hanley, "Nasdaq can deal some rough justice," The Financial Post, August 19, 1994

Today's word is a newly manufactured verb that comes from the noun Nasdaq (an acronym that's pronounced NAZ.dak and is short for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations). Nasdaq is where many technology stocks are listed, so it will come as no surprise that the Nasdaq Composite Index has fallen over 60% since its peak in early 2000.

I generally don't foist a word upon the list unless I can find it used in at least three citations from three different publications and three different writers. I make some exceptions for terms that are popular on the Web or Usenet, and there's always the occasional fancy-tickler that makes it through, but I prefer to feature words that have a media track record.

Today's new verb is a good example of how patient you sometimes have to be in this game. For a couple of years I'd been sitting on four citations that used Nasdaq as a verb. Unfortunately, they were all written by the same person and all appeared in the same publication, which meant the word was coined, but it didn't have currency. Then I saw the above Denver Post citation late last month, and the New York Times Book Review was good enough to provide another citation this past Sunday. That was enough to meet my three-writers and three-publications criteria, so here we are.