On NPR this afternoon, as I was returning from lunch, I listened to Talk of the Nation where the guest was Simon Winchester, author of The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. Besides being a very entertaining interview subject, Mr. Winchester had opened the floor to listeners to suggest new words that they thought should be in the dictionary.

Well, one guy called in with a word that both Neal Conan and Mr. Winchester agreed sounded very good and could be a real contender. So here I present to you, slightly paraphrased from my memory of the call (and apologies to the caller for forgetting his name):

convivant, noun, ("kän-vE-'vänt, "kOⁿ-vE-'väⁿ)
A committed, romantic partner with whom you share living space.

The caller was certain to leave gender out of the definition, and presented it in the context of needing a clear, convenient word to describe a person's parner(s) where "spouse" was not accurate.

Best part is, if it gets used in enough "real" (published and/or broadcast media or entertainment) arenas, it could actually make it into the OED.

(On the one-in-a-million chance that the caller happens across the entry [perhaps by Googling to see if anyone has used the word?] and wants to provide his name and/or clarification of the definition, I'll update this to reflect that.)