Mountweazel is a fascinating term that refers to the practice of adding fake entries into reference works to catch plagiarizers. Some examples include esquivalience (“an avoidance of responsibilities”) in the New Pauly encyclopedia, prothesize (“place before”) in various Merriam Webster dictionaries, jungftak (a type of Persian bird) in the New Oxford American Dictionary, and fictional “paper towns” on maps. These entries act as copyright traps to identify those who are copying the content. The term mountweazel is derived from Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fabricated individual mentioned in the 1975 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary as an American photographer who died in an explosion. Since its inception, the use of mountweazel has grown significantly, particularly around the early 2000s, reaching its peak in 2010.
