>>8273098Since words composed of Greek and Latin roots are considered valid in English, English lets you create entirely new words with inherent meaning.
So English actually has an indefinite number of meaningful words.
Claustrophilia is composed of the Latin word "claustrum" meaning "shut" and the Greek word "philia" which doesn't really have any translation but everyone knows what it means.
So saying you learned a new word is kind of an odd thing in this case; this would be considered a word, but when a word composed of Greek and Latin roots is very rare, those fluent in English treat it more like a bunch of root words slapped together. That's how they understand what the word means without referring to a dictionary, or even use the word without having encountered it before.
