folk etymology: meaning and example
English
folk etymology
A change in a word because people mistakenly connect it with a familiar word.
“The Spanish word 'cucaracha' was altered by folk etymology in English as 'cockroach'.”
From the free BrainPod Linguistic Gems II.
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More words from Linguistic Gems II
archaism
A word or phrase that is outdated or no longer in common use.
eponym
A person’s name that gives its name to a place, invention, or discovery.
calque
A phrase translated literally from another language word for word.
zeugma
A figure of speech where a word applies to multiple others in different senses.
syncope
The omission of sounds or letters from the interior of a word.
tmesis
The separation of parts of a compound word by an intervening word or words.
hapax legomenon
A word that occurs only once within a context or body of literature.
apocope
The loss of one or more sounds or letters at the end of a word.
