Imagine modeling the components of a word mathematically. Each word has a value in some number of dimensions, like maybe how negative the word is, or how much it has to do with fruit or something.

You’d be able to calculate a set of eigenvectors to describe each dimension, basically unit vectors. You could have an eigen-name or eigen-compliment, basically just a word that other names or compliments could be expressed in units of that word.

I think 1984’s Newspeak shows some examples of what eigen-words could be. Stuff like “doublepluscold.”