Living languages are constantly growing. New words come from a variety of places. One common origin is from a novel. Richard Adams, in the novel Watership Down, invented the word, "Tharn" to describe the physical and mental state a rabbit enters when frightened. Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land invented the word "Grok" which means "to know, or understand." Sometimes, however, it is less intentional. An author creates a character and the readers discover the character displays a personality or a mannerism that is in need of a word to describe it. The name of the character might be appropriated. R.B. Sheridan in the novel, The Rivals created a character named Mrs. Malaprop who constantly misused words. The word, "malaprop" can now be found in almost any English dictionary.
All the examples I have mentioned so far are English words. However, this happens in other languages as well. In 1862 Victor Hugo introduced the novel, Les Miserables, to the world. Gavroche meant nothing before then. Now it is a French adjective meaning mischievous or impish. Perhaps the closest English word would be "Puckish." While Puck was a character in William Shakespeare's play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," this word comes from the Old Norse word "Puki" meaning devil.
There have been many drawings of the character, Gavroche, most of them more kind than the one above. Why have I selected it? Victor Hugo himself drew the caricature, and it appears in his journals.
Quotes from Les Miserables:
If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed.
The guilty one is not he who commits the sin,
but the one who causes the darkness.
If we took a little time, the nettle would be useful;
we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it.
Men are so like the nettle! There are no bad herbs, and no bad men;
there are only bad cultivators.
Sooner or later, the splendid question of universal education
will take its position with the irresistible authority of absolute truth.
All the crimes of man begin with the vagrancy of childhood.
A hatred for educating the children of the people was dogma.
What good was "a little learning"?
(A probable reference to Alexander Pope's:
A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring/
Here shallow draughts intoxicate the brain/And drinking largely sobers us again)