The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

derivatives, including niche advertising, niche analysis, niche business, and niche marketing (all referring to the exploitation of niches), niche player (a person who exploits a niche), nichemanship (the practice or technique of exploiting a niche), and the verb niche market.

The only sensible strategy for non-bank financial institutions is nichemanship.

Business Review Weekly 29 Aug. 1986, p. 56

At the very time when Campbell was niche marketing trendy vegetables in its bid to be the 'well-being company', it was embroiled in a messy farm labor dispute.

Warren Belasco Appetite for Change (1989), p. 219

The pizza chains...plug valuable niches in the Retail Division between the Berni and other restaurants at one extreme and the pubs and pub-restaurants at the other.

Intercity Apr. 1990, p. 17

But if you had a real niche fund, say a French authorised second section oil fund for instance, then you could raise interest from foreign investors who wanted into that niche.

European Investor May 1990, p. 10

The areas of assistance available through the program include technology transfers, OEM agreements, distribution networks, market niche analysis for products and technologies, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions.

UnixWorld Jan. 1991, p. 157

Nikkei noun (Business World)

Used attributively in Nikkei index, Nikkei (stock) average, etc.: an index of the relative prices of representative shares

on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (also known informally as the Nikkei Dow (or Nikkei Dow Jones) average).

Etymology: A borrowing from Japanese; it is formed from the initial syllables of the first two words of Nihon Keizai Shimbun 'Japanese Economic Journal', the title of Japan's main financial newspaper, where the index is compiled and published (compare Footsie).

History and Usage: The Tokyo Stock Exchange calculated its own stock average from 1949; this work was taken over by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in 1974. In the late seventies and eighties Western economic and financial sources started to publish

figures from the Nikkei index and Nikkei was frequently mentioned in television and radio reports, bringing the word into popular use alongside Footsie and Dow. Like Dow Jones, Nikkei is sometimes used on its own as a short form of Nikkei average, etc.

A major aim of the $90 million fund is to negotiate the region's sky-high p/e multiples and towering 28,000 Nikkei Dow without giving its investors nosebleeds.

Financial World 20 Sept. 1988, p. 51

The Nikkei average plummeted 1,978.38, or 6.6 per cent, to close at its low for the day of 28,002.07--its

steepest decline since just after New York's Black Monday crash in October 1987, when the Nikkei dropped 3,936.48 points.

Financial Times 3 Apr. 1990, p. 41

(Politics)

The initial letters of the slogan 'not in my back yard', expressing objection to the siting of something unpleasant, such as a nuclear waste dump, in one's own locality (although, by implication, not minding this elsewhere). Hence as an adjective,

having the attitude that such unpleasant developments should not

used allusively to refer to the single market itself or to one or more of the characteristics of the European economy that would result from it.

Etymology: The year in which the changes were to be implemented fully; actually, the single market was not to be complete until

the end of the year, so 1993 would be the first year in which its full effects would be felt.

History and Usage: For history, see single market. 1992 was the focus of the British Department of Trade and Industry's advertising campaign to prepare businesses and individuals for the single market, and thus became a term with more currency than single market itself.

With 1992 just around the corner, Eisner and the rest of his 'Yo-team-let's-go' management will be eagerly looking to Disneyize Europe and then the rest of the world.

Broadcast 18 Aug. 1989, p. 10

Over the past five years there has been a new renaissance, as Eurosclerosis was replaced by the excitement of the 1992 programme.

European 11-13 May 1990, p. 23

As 1992 looms closer and cross-border deals become increasingly important, we do have an ace up our sleeve: a knowledgeable European network.

World Outside: Career Guide 1990, p. 94

ninja noun and adjective Also written Ninja (Lifestyle and Leisure) (War and Weaponry)

noun: A Japanese warrior trained in ninjutsu, the art of stealth or invisibility, which was developed in feudal times in Japan and later practised more widely as a martial art.

adjective: Of, belonging to, or characteristic of the ninjas or their techniques.

Etymology: A direct borrowing from Japanese, in which it is a compound word meaning 'practitioner of stealth', made up of the elements nin 'stealth' and ja 'person'.

History and Usage: Ninjutsu is an ancient art in Japan--it was practised by the warriors employed by feudal war lords for espionage and assassination--but the words ninja and ninjutsu were hardly used in English-language sources before the seventies. A rare use in spy fiction comes in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (1964):

My agents are trained in one of the arts most dreaded in Japan--ninjutsu...They are now learning to be ninja or 'stealers in'.

The rise of interest in oriental martial arts in the seventies meant that some Westerners became interested in the history of the ninjas and started to try to emulate them. Ninjas also

began to figure in role-playing and fantasy games. What brought the words ninja and ninjutsu into popular use, though, was the commercial success in the late eighties of the Turtles (whose full name, in the US at least, was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

I'm inside a recreated Japanese ninja training hall--on the walls a collection of exotic chains, knives, swords, whips, staffs, and other sadistic tools that would make a hardened dominatrix blush.

Omni Mar. 1990, p. 64

The first level [in a computer game] starts off with Ninjas suspended from trees.

CU Amiga Apr. 1990, p. 28

There is far more to the graphic novel than recording the exploits of Donatello and his ninja friends.

Times Educational Supplement 2 Nov. 1990, Review section, p. 1

(foods, drink, drugs, etc.) which might be harmful to one's mental or physical health; an extreme form of total abstention.

Etymology: Formed by combining the prefix non- 'not' with the suffix -ism to make a word which does not, strictly speaking, contain a root (but perhaps this emphasizes the point: it is a non-word).

History and Usage: The increasing preoccupation in the late eighties with health and fitness on the one hand, and with prevention as preferable to cure on the other, produced a feeling not infrequently expressed that it had become difficult to consume or do anything without worrying about its possibly deleterious effects. Non-ism is a name for the most extreme response to the wealth of information on preventive medicine; a person who practises it is a non-ist. The word was brought into the news by reports in 1990 of a Boston psychiatrist whose son

had given up almost all pleasures; he seemed to typify a growing trend in US society.

His son...is stuck in a limbo of non-ism...He gave up drinking, drugs and caffeine, meat, sugar, dairy and wheat products, and sex. He is depressed and lethargic. 'He's a pleasure anorexic,' said his father.

New York Times 27 May 1990, p. 22

The rule...for the 1990s...is to define yourself through denial...This new creed of 'non-ism', as the academics are calling it, draws on the fashion for abstention from drink, tobacco, drugs...and all other contaminants.

The Times 13 June 1990, p. 11

noov adjective Also written noove (People and Society)

In slang, a member of the nouveaux riches; someone who has recently come into money and thereby moved up to a higher socio-economic bracket.

Etymology: Formed by abbreviating nouveau (itself sometimes used as a short form for nouveau riche), respelling the

resulting word to reflect its anglicized pronunciation; English

speakers might be tempted to pronounce nouv /--/.

History and Usage: Noov and nouveau became popular slang abbreviations of nouveau riche in the late seventies or early eighties.

A neighbour of ours...A real noove, pretending to be a farmer.

Susan Moody Penny Post (1985), p. 31

The pupils: 45 per cent sons of Old Etonians...Also largish element of noovs to keep up academic standards and/or provide useful business contacts.

The Times 7 Oct. 1986, p. 14

notebook (Science and Technology) see laptop

nouvelle adjective (Lifestyle and Leisure)

Of a restaurant, food, etc.: using or characterized by nouvelle cuisine, a style of cooking, originally from France, in which simplicity, freshness, and aesthetically pleasing presentation are emphasized.

Etymology: Formed by abbreviating nouvelle cuisine, literally 'new cooking' to its first word, 'new'.

History and Usage: Nouvelle cuisine became fashionable outside France in the late seventies and early eighties, offering as it

did a completely different approach from the elaborate sauces and richness of traditional French cooking. Nouvelle also became a fashionable adjective in the second half of the seventies to describe cooking that incorporated any of the principles of nouvelle cuisine, such as lightness, short cooking times, artistic presentation (some of the nouvelle dishes were likened to works of art, designed only for photographing and not for eating), or small helpings (since the bare surface of the

plate had a part to play in framing the artistic arrangement of the food). All of these characteristics were the object of criticism as well as praise, so the adjective nouvelle could be either approving or derogatory, depending on the view of its

user.

Plates arrive from the kitchen under silver covers that are removed with a flourish to reveal distinctly nouvelle still-life-like arrangements on those handsome basket plates popularized by Michel Gu‚rard.

Gourmet July 1981, p. 90

One establishment we visited served every dish flanked by the same ludicrously inappropriate clutter: a frilly lettuce leaf pinned down by a couple of hefty spring onions, a pallid slice of kiwi fruit and a strawberry.

Oh nouvelle cuisine, what have you spawned!

Country Living Aug. 1990, p. 68

14.7 nuclear device...

nuclear device

(War and Weaponry) see device

nuclear-free

(Environment) (War and Weaponry) see -free

nuclear winter

noun (Environment) (War and Weaponry)

A prolonged period of extreme cold and darkness which, according to some scientists, would be a global consequence of a nuclear

war because a thick layer of smoke and dust particles in the atmosphere would shut out the sun's rays.

Etymology: Formed by compounding: an artificial winter caused by a nuclear conflict.

History and Usage: The theory of the nuclear winter was formulated by five American scientists, originally for a conference in Washington DC in October-December 1983, and popularized particularly by one of them, Carl Sagan, who attributes the coinage to another, Richard Turco. Writing in the Washington Post's Parade magazine at the time of the Conference,

Sagan describes their research as follows:

We considered a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one per-cent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. This

scenario, we found, would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as

in the 5000-megaton case. The threshold for what Richard Turco has called The Nuclear Winter is very low.

The lowering of temperatures and lack of light caused by radioactive debris in the atmosphere would, according to this theory, destroy the cycles of nature and ruin crop growth, so that any human survivors of a nuclear exchange would soon run out of food. The theory of the nuclear winter, which was widely discussed in the mid eighties, had an important influence on the military strategy of the superpowers in the second half of the decade. It possibly contributed to the spirit of disarmament which marked the late eighties and early nineties, since it showed a nuclear first strike to be a potentially suicidal act

on the part of any country using it, whether or not it led to a nuclear exchange. As the theory was refined it became clear that the global winter scenario was perhaps an exaggeration, and it was supplemented by the idea of a nuclear autumn, in which temperatures would drop significantly, altering the climate with agricultural consequences, but not causing global famine. The underlying principle was raised again in a non-nuclear setting in 1991, when Iraqi troops set light to hundreds of oil wells in Kuwait before leaving at the end of their occupation of the country, and smoke from these oil fires, blocking the sun's

rays, had a similar effect on local temperatures and light levels.

Downwind from Chernobyl, the first faint chill of a nuclear winter has caused...shivers of anxiety.

The Times 20 May 1986, p. 14

Calculations that the aftermath of a nuclear war might resemble 'nuclear autumn' rather than 'nuclear winter' are probably wrong.