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A mondegreen (/ ˈ m ɒ n d ɪ ˌ ɡ r iː n / ⓘ) is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. [1] Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.
A homograph (from the Greek: ὁμός, homós 'same' and γράφω, gráphō 'write') is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. [1] However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also be pronounced differently, [ 2 ] while the Oxford English Dictionary says that the words should also be of ...
The word crap did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's apt surname. The word crap ultimately comes from Medieval Latin crappa. The word fuck did not originate in the Middle Ages as an acronym. Proposed acronyms include "fornicating under consent of king" or "for unlawful carnal knowledge", used as a sign posted ...
Every day (two words) is an adverb phrase meaning "daily" or "every weekday". Everyday (one word) is an adjective meaning "ordinary". [48] exacerbate and exasperate. Exacerbate means "to make worse". Exasperate means "to annoy". Standard: Treatment by untrained personnel can exacerbate injuries.
Lists of English words; List of works with different titles in the United Kingdom and United States; Pseudo-anglicism; Glossary of American terms not widely used in the United Kingdom; Glossary of British terms not widely used in the United States
For example, the Hebrew word דַּל dal ("poor") (which is a false cognate of the phono-semantically similar English word dull) is used in the new Israeli Hebrew expression אין רגע דל en rega dal (literally "There is no poor moment") as a phono-semantic matching for the English expression Never a dull moment.
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A misnomer may also be a word that is used incorrectly or misleadingly. [2] The word "misnomer" does not mean " misunderstanding " or " popular misconception ", [ 2 ] and a number of misnomers remain in common usage — which is to say that a word being a misnomer does not necessarily make usage of the word incorrect.