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Yankee does not originate from the Cherokee word eankke meaning "coward". The word does not exist in the Cherokee language. It also does not come from a native tribe called the Yankoo meaning "invincible". No tribe has existed under that name. The word actually probably has Dutch origins. [92]
A false etymology (fake etymology or pseudo-etymology) is a false theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase. When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural/linguistic community, it is a folk etymology (or popular etymology ). [ 1 ]
Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). jungftak, n. Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; instead of the missing wings, the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone, and it was by uniting hook and eye that they ...
An etymological fallacy becomes possible when a word's meaning shifts over time from its original meaning. Such changes can include a narrowing or widening of scope or a change of connotation (amelioration or pejoration). In some cases, modern usage can shift to the point where the new meaning has no evident connection to its etymon.
Bongo-Bongo – Name for an imaginary language in linguistics; Etymological fallacy – Fallacy in which a word's history defines its meaning; False cognate – Words that look or sound alike, but are not related; False etymology – Popular, but false belief about word origins; Folk etymology – Process of reinterpretive word formation
A fact from List of common false etymologies of English words appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 June 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the f-word did not begin as an acronym, as is commonly claimed, but is of much older Proto-Germanic origin?
The term "false cognate" is sometimes misused to refer to false friends, but the two phenomena are distinct. [1] [2] False friends occur when two words in different languages or dialects look similar, but have different meanings. While some false friends are also false cognates, many are genuine cognates (see False friends § Causes). [2]
Pseudo-anglicisms can be created in various ways, such as by archaism, i.e., words that once had that meaning in English but are since abandoned; semantic slide, where an English word is used incorrectly to mean something else; conversion of existing words from one part of speech to another; or recombinations by reshuffling English units.