nickname

1) a name adopted by a person as relatively unique in the community, (cf. alias); in the Oriental cultures there are at least three kinds of n. as described in the Chinese PS-RULE [PS9]: a) a name acquire from associates in the workplace (wàihào 外號 now 外号), b) a name given by family and close friends (xiǎomíng 小詺) which we call a ‘pet name’, c) a milk name given to an infant who is nursing (nǎimíng 奶詺 or rǔmíng 乳詺); 2) any historically systematic deviant of a formal (standard) spelling of a given name; a familiar kind of n. is the ‘pet name’ in British English for which the technical term is hypocorism; cf., Chapter 3, §1, ¶7