I'VE gotten some flack for using the word "legillimency" in a title a few days ago, I make no apologies for using it, I do it boldly because the word conveyed both by denotation and connotation exactly what I meant to use it to convey. The book, if I recall correctly, in which J. K. Rowling introduced the word for the first time was "Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix", the fifth of the books, I believe it was used in the next two books.
HP&TOOTP sold five million copies on the first day of publication and, Harry Potter fans of the day being what they were, I would guarantee you that it entered into the recognition if not use vocabulary of at least five million English speaking readers hours after the book was released - Harry potter fans didn't buy the books to leave them unread for a day - probably many times that within the first month after publication. I don't know what the sales figures of the book have been in the last seventeen years but I'm sure many more millions of copies of the book have sold since then in English alone. I never read that one of the series in any other language but I'd guess that as soon as it was translated into most if not all the languages it was translated into, that word entered into the recognition vocabulary of many millions of more people in other language communities around the world not long after that. I would doubt that many neologisms in most "high literature" or scholarly works or essays could match that word for number of literate people who could tell you a precise definition of it is.
A word becomes a "real word" through its use by people, that use is later recognized in reference works but it is the use of it that confers its status as a real word, I am not a Harry Potter fanatic, I know there are many of them, I'm sure that a large, though smaller group of the human population have used the word "legillimency" many times, on online and other forums, probably in scholarly works, even, use of a word also confers the status of it being a "real word" on a word. I would bet you that that particular word is used far more often by far more people who understand it to have the same meaning than most of the more and less obscure words in a collegiate or unabridged English dictionary.
The Merriam-Webster website (I love the Merriam-Webster website) has an article about "real words" that are used in the Harry Potter series, in the listing of "Arithmancy" it says,
The most important feature of the wizarding world is not it flora or fauna, but magic itself. Divination, charms, potions, alchemy: all of these are words that we’re familiar with, and words that we already associate with magic. But there are other magical words Rowling uses that may pass you by.
Arithmancy is one such word. It is, as any fan of the books will tell you, Hermione’s favorite subject: it is divination using numbers and numerology. The word dates back to the 1500s and is a combination of arithmetic and the suffix -mancy, which means “divination.” Arithmancy wasn’t just fictional: there are numerous 17th-century records stating that arithmancy was not just magical, but also religious and philosophical. In fact, arithmancy was common enough that the word arithmancy has an entry in a very early English dictionary:
Arithmancy (Gr.) divination made by number, which hath consideration and contemplation of Angelical vertues; of names, signacles, natures, and conditions, both of Devils and other Creatures. —Thomas Blount, Glossographia: Or A Dictionarie Interpreting Hard Words, 1661
Blount also mentions arithmancy in his entry for cabala, which he defines as “a hidden Science of Divine Mysteries”:
Arithmancy, Theomancy and Cosmology, are said to depend on the aforesaid Cabala, which (to give you also Reuclins definition of it) is nothing else but a kind of unwritten Theology.
You’ve probably already figured out that Rowling also used the suffix -mancy in naming two other types of magic that are important to the series: occlumency, or the magical art of shielding one’s thoughts (a likely blend of the word occlude, or “to hide,” with a slightly altered -mancy); and its comparative term, legilimency, or the magical art of reading one’s mind (heavily influenced by the word legible, or “capable an article about "real words" of being read,” with the altered -mancy).
If Rowling had not included the word "arithmancy" in the series, I bet not a fraction of one percent of those who would have known exactly what I meant by using the word in the title as I did would know the "real word." Though, due to her use of the suffix in question, they may well have figured out what it meant. I make no apologies for using a word that probably tens if not hundreds of millions of people around the world know and know the meaning of to communicate the idea it was invented to mean, taking advantage of the fact that if there is such a thing, it's nothing that the law of the United States should insist can and must be done in the application of the law.
You may notice I have concentrated only on the use of the word in the books, not in the movies made on the books. I only saw part of the first and all of the third of the movies, I didn't much like either - hated the music. I would imagine they use the word in the movies so perhaps many times more people than I imagine learned the word from the books learned it from the movie, but I don't know much about that.
I would bet you that many, perhaps most of the many neologisms contained in the "Shakespeare" canon don't have the current frequency in either the recognition or use vocabulary of educated or uneducated English speakers that the word in question does. A few of them are of disputed use by even the author, at least one I'm aware of very likely being a spurious introduction by likely Dutch typesetters who didn't speak much English. It didn't enter the language on any other basis. Is it a real word?
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