What it means. Combine the frugality, simplicity, and luxury-shunning behavior that form the common meaning of spartan with the spur-of-the-moment behavior that's synonymous with spontaneity, and you get spartaneity, a back-to-basics, less-is-more approach to living in these bleak economic times.

While we'd like to claim first-to-use honor for all the entries on our growing list of buzzwords, we're usually helping to generate some noise and reflecting a trend. (We have been early adopters of some terms, including staycation.) But spartaneity generates few Google hits and seems to have little or nothing in print.

Why the buzz? Layoffs by the tens of thousands, home foreclosures at record levels, and 401(k)s depleted by Wall Street woes are all signs of the time and factors in the growing culture of spartaneity. You've likely adopted ways to keep spending in check these days, perhaps holding off on a kitchen remodel or holding on to a car longer, making a last-minute decision to forgo a winter getaway, or eating homemade meals more often.

A dash of spartaneity would be a positive influence on some of the business world's most unashamed sultans of excess. Here's how it might have looked for Merrill Lynch's exiled former CEO John Thain (close your eyes for that fuzzy flashback look TV shows use):

Rather than spend $1.2 million of the firm's money to redecorate his office with an $87,000 area rug, a $68,000 credenza, and a $35,000 commode, among other extravagances, Thain would have chosen a simple area rug and a sturdy side table from one of the many furniture stores now offering huge discounts. He would have gone on Craigslist or Freecycle to find a budget-minded (read: free) commode and might have brought in an umbrella stand from home and perhaps even kept his old executive chair.

Instead of incurring the wrath of a strapped nation, a spartaneous Thain would have been embraced as a responsible corporate honcho by millions—in particular, shareholders and the company's former employees now collecting unemployment, not to mention Bank Of America, Merrill Lynch's new owner.

Thain spurned such responsible behavior, as have many of his corporate cronies. But we're curious to learn whether you're practicing spartaneity. Tell us how by posting a comment below.—Kimberly Janeway