G is for Google, as the company’s chief executive, Larry Page, put it this week in a blog post introducing Alphabet, Google’s new corporate name.

G is also for genericization.

That’s the process of becoming generic, or “not sold or made under a particular brand name,” according to Webster’s dictionary.

The definition is of more than just linguistic interest to Google and its shareholders.

Google is one of the most valuable brands in the world. According to Forbes magazine, it ranks third with an estimated brand value of $66 billion, behind Apple and Microsoft. The company vigilantly defends its trademark, both in and out of court. It’s in no imminent danger of losing its trademark protection. But given the popularity of Google’s brand, and how it has entered mainstream English usage as a verb (to google) and participle (googling), it may only be a matter of time.

If so, it will join the distinguished company of aspirin, cellophane, thermos, escalator, dry ice and trampoline — all once-prominent brand names that lost their legal status as protected trademarks after entering mainstream usage. Webster’s itself has been genericized as a synonym for dictionary, and the name can be used by anybody, even though it’s owned by Encyclopaedia Britannica.