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Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s. The term ''folk etymology'' is a
loan translation In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language whi ...
from
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
''Volksetymologie'', coined by
Ernst Förstemann Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann (Danzig, 18 September 1822 – Charlottenburg, 4 November 1906) was a German historian, mathematician, doctor of linguistics, librarian, and director of the Saxon State Library (german: Sächsische Landesbibliothek) in ...
in 1852. Folk etymology is a
productive Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
process in
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
,
language change Language change is variation over time in a language's features. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify ...
, and
social interaction A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
. Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form ''sparrowgrass'', originally from Greek ("
asparagus Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in ...
") remade by analogy to the more familiar words ''sparrow'' and ''grass''. When the alteration of an unfamiliar word is limited to a single person, it is known as an
eggcorn An eggcorn is the alteration of a phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,, sense 2 creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used ...
.


Productive force

The technical term "folk etymology" refers to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular suppositions about its
etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
. Until academic linguists developed comparative philology (now "
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness ...
") and described the laws underlying
sound changes A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...
, the derivation of a word was mostly guess-work. Speculation about the original form of words in turn feeds back into the development of the word and thus becomes a part of a new etymology. Believing a word to have a certain origin, people begin to pronounce, spell, or otherwise use the word in a manner appropriate to that perceived origin. This popular etymologizing has had a powerful influence on the forms which words take. Examples in English include ''
crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ...
'' or ''crawfish'', which are not historically related to ''fish'' but come from
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
''crevis'',
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with French ''écrevisse''. Likewise ''chaise lounge'', from the original French ''chaise longue'' ("long chair"), has come to be associated with the word ''lounge''.


Related phenomena

Other types of language change caused by reanalysis of the structure of a word include
rebracketing Rebracketing (also known as resegmentation or metanalysis) is a process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one set of morphemes is broken down or bracketed into a different set. For example, ''hamburger'', originally ...
and
back-formation In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the c ...
. In rebracketing, users of the language change misinterpret or reinterpret the location of a boundary between words or
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s. For example, the
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
word ''orenge'' ("orange tree") comes from
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
''an nāranj'' ("the orange tree"), with the initial ''n'' of ''nāranj'' understood as part of the
article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...
. Rebracketing in the opposite direction saw the Middle English ''a napron'' become ''an apron''. In back-formation, a new word is created by removing elements from an existing word that are interpreted as
affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es. For example,
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
''pronuncia'' ('pronunciation; accent') is derived from the verb ''pronunciare'' ('to pronounce; to utter') and English ''edit'' derives from ''editor''. Some cases of back-formation are based on folk etymology.


Examples in English

In linguistic change caused by folk etymology, the form of a word changes so that it better matches its popular rationalisation. Typically this happens either to unanalysable foreign words or to compounds where the word underlying one part of the compound becomes obsolete.


Loanwords

There are many examples of words borrowed from foreign languages, and subsequently changed by folk etymology. The spelling of many borrowed words reflects folk etymology. For example, ''
andiron An andiron or firedog, fire-dog or fire dog is a bracket support, normally found in pairs, on which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace, so that air may circulate under the firewood, allowing better burning and less smoke. They gene ...
'' borrowed from Old French was variously spelled ''aundyre'' or ''aundiren'' in Middle English, but was altered by association with ''iron''. Other Old French loans altered in a similar manner include '' belfry'' (from ''berfrey'') by association with ''bell'', ''female'' (from ''femelle'') by ''male'', and ''penthouse'' (from ''apentis'') by ''house''. The variant spelling of ''licorice'' as ''
liquorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liqu ...
'' comes from the supposition that it has something to do with liquid. Anglo-Norman ''licoris'' (influenced by ''licor'' "liquor") and
Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
''liquirītia'' were respelled for similar reasons, though the ultimate origin of all three is Greek ' (glycyrrhiza) "sweet root". Reanalysis of loan words can affect their spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. The word ''cockroach'', for example, was borrowed from Spanish ''cucaracha'' but was assimilated to the existing English words ''cock'' and ''
roach Roach may refer to: Animals * Cockroach, various insect species of the order Blattodea * Common roach (''Rutilus rutilus''), a fresh and brackish water fish of the family Cyprinidae ** ''Rutilus'' or roaches, a genus of fishes * California roach ...
''. The phrase ''
forlorn hope A forlorn hope is a band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the vanguard in a military operation, such as a suicidal assault through the kill zone of a defended position, or the first men to climb a scaling ladder against a defende ...
'' originally meant "storming party, body of skirmishers"Brown, Lesley (ed.). 2002. ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. 1, A–M. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 1600. from Dutch ''verloren hoop'' "lost troop". But confusion with English ''hope'' has given the term an additional meaning of "hopeless venture". Sometimes imaginative stories are created to account for the link between a borrowed word and its popularly assumed sources. The names of the ''
serviceberry ''Amelanchier'' ( ), also known as shadbush, shadwood or shadblow, serviceberry or sarvisberry (or just sarvis), juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild-plum or chuckley pear,A Digital Flora of Newfoundland and Labrador Vascular Plants/ref> is a g ...
'', ''service tree'', and related plants, for instance, come from the Latin name ''
sorbus ''Sorbus'' is a genus of over 100 species of trees and shrubs in the rose family, Rosaceae. Species of ''Sorbus'' (''s.l.'') are commonly known as whitebeam, rowan ( mountain-ash) and service tree. The exact number of species is disputed depend ...
''. The plants were called ''syrfe'' in Old English, which eventually became ''service''. Fanciful stories suggest that the name comes from the fact that the trees bloom in spring, a time when circuit-riding preachers resume church services or when funeral services are carried out for people who died during the winter. A seemingly plausible but no less speculative etymology accounts for the form of ''
Welsh rarebit Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit ( or ) is a dish consisting of a hot Cheese sauce, cheese-based sauce served over slices of Toast (food), toasted bread. The original 18th-century name of the dish was the jocular "Welsh rabbit", which was later fo ...
'', a dish made of cheese and toasted bread. The earliest known reference to the dish in 1725 called it ''Welsh rabbit''. The origin of that name is unknown, but presumably humorous, since the dish contains no rabbit. In 1785
Francis Grose Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Prove ...
suggested in ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' that the dish is "a Welch rare bit", though the word ''rarebit'' was not common prior to Grose's dictionary. Both versions of the name are in current use; individuals sometimes express strong opinions concerning which version is correct.


Obsolete forms

When a word or other form becomes obsolete, words or phrases containing the obsolete portion may be reanalyzed and changed. Some
compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...
s from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
were reanalyzed in Middle or Modern English when one of the constituent words fell out of use. Examples include ''
bridegroom A bridegroom (often shortened to groom) is a man who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bridegroom's future spouse (if female) is usually referred to as the bride. A bridegroom is typically attended by a best man an ...
'' from Old English '' brydguma'' "bride-man". The word '' gome'' "man" from Old English '' guma'' fell out of use during the sixteenth century and the compound was eventually reanalyzed with the Modern English word ''
groom A bridegroom (often shortened to groom) is a man who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bridegroom's future spouse (if female) is usually referred to as the bride. A bridegroom is typically attended by a best man an ...
'' "male servant". A similar reanalysis caused '' sandblind'', from Old English ''sāmblind'' "half-blind" with a once-common prefix ''sām-'' "semi-", to be respelled as though it is related to ''sand''. The word ''island'' derives from Old English ''igland''. The modern spelling with the letter ''s'' is the result of comparison with the synonym '' isle'' from Old French and ultimately as a
Latinist Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
borrowing of ''insula'', though the Old French and Old English words are not historically related. In a similar way, the spelling of '' wormwood'' was likely affected by comparison with ''wood''. The phrase '' curry favour'', meaning to flatter, comes from Middle English ''curry favel'', "
groom A bridegroom (often shortened to groom) is a man who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bridegroom's future spouse (if female) is usually referred to as the bride. A bridegroom is typically attended by a best man an ...
a chestnut horse". This was an
allusion Allusion is a figure of speech, in which an object or circumstance from unrelated context is referred to covertly or indirectly. It is left to the audience to make the direct connection. Where the connection is directly and explicitly stated (as ...
to a fourteenth-century French morality poem, ''
Roman de Fauvel The ''Roman de Fauvel'' is a 14th-century French allegorical verse romance of satirical bent, generally attributed to , a clerk at the French royal chancery. The original narrative of 3,280 octosyllabics is divided into two books, dated to 131 ...
'', about a chestnut-colored horse who corrupts men through duplicity. The phrase was reanalyzed in early Modern English by comparison to ''favour'' as early as 1510. Words need not completely disappear before their compounds are reanalyzed. The word '' shamefaced'' was originally '' shamefast''. The original meaning of ''fast'' 'fixed in place' still exists, as in the compounded words ''steadfast'' and ''colorfast'', but by itself mainly in frozen expressions such as ''stuck fast'', ''hold fast'', and '' play fast and loose''. The songbird ''
wheatear The wheatears are passerine birds of the genus ''Oenanthe''. They were formerly considered to be members of the thrush family, Turdidae, but are now more commonly placed in the flycatcher family, Muscicapidae. This is an Old World group, bu ...
'' or ''white-ear'' is a back-formation from Middle English ''whit-ers'' 'white arse', referring to the prominent white rump found in most species. Although both ''white'' and ''arse'' are common in Modern English, the folk etymology may be
euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...
. Reanalysis of archaic or obsolete forms can lead to changes in meaning as well. The original meaning of ''
hangnail A hangnail is a tiny, torn piece of skin next to a fingernail or toenail, related to ingrown nails. The hangnail's other scientific names are: eponychium or paronychium. Hangnails are typically caused by having dry skin, or by trauma to the fin ...
'' referred to a
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
on the foot. The word comes from Old English '' ang-'' + '' nægel'' ("anguished nail" or "compressed spike"), but the spelling and pronunciation were affected by folk etymology in the seventeenth century or earlier. Thereafter, the word came to be used for a tag of skin or torn
cuticle A cuticle (), or cuticula, is any of a variety of tough but flexible, non-mineral outer coverings of an organism, or parts of an organism, that provide protection. Various types of "cuticle" are non- homologous, differing in their origin, structu ...
near a
fingernail A nail is a claw-like plate found at the tip of the fingers and toes on most primates. Nails correspond to the claws found in other animals. Fingernails and toenails are made of a tough protective protein called alpha-keratin, which is a polymer. ...
or toenail.


Other languages

Several words in
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
were subject to folk etymology. For example, the word ''widerdonum'' meaning 'reward' was borrowed from
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
''widarlōn'' "repayment of a loan". The ''l→d'' alteration is due to confusion with Latin ''donum'' 'gift'. Similarly, the word ''baceler'' or ''bacheler'' (related to modern English ''bachelor'') referred to a junior knight. It is attested from the eleventh century, though its ultimate origin is uncertain. By the late Middle Ages its meaning was extended to the holder of a university degree inferior to master or doctor. This was later re-spelled ''baccalaureus'', probably reflecting a false derivation from ''bacca laurea'' 'laurel berry', alluding to the possible laurel crown of a poet or conqueror. In the fourteenth or fifteenth century, French scholars began to spell the verb ''savoir'' ('to know') as ''sçavoir'' on the false belief it was derived from Latin ''scire'' 'to know'. In fact it comes from ''sapere'' 'to be wise'. The Italian word ''liocorno, ''meaning 'unicorn' derives from 13th-century ''lunicorno'' (''lo'' 'the' + ''unicorno'' 'unicorn'). Folk etymology based on ''lione'' 'lion' altered the spelling and pronunciation. Dialectal ''liofante'' 'elephant' was likewise altered from ''elefante'' by association with ''lione''. The
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
word for '
hammock A hammock (from Spanish , borrowed from Taíno and Arawak ) is a sling made of fabric, rope, or netting, suspended between two or more points, used for swing (seat), swinging, sleeping, or Human relaxation, resting. It normally consists of one ...
' is ''hangmat''. It was borrowed from Spanish ''hamaca'' (ultimately from
Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...
''amàca'') and altered by comparison with ''hangen'' and ''mat'', 'hanging mat'. German ''Hängematte'' shares this folk etymology. '' Islambol'', a folk etymology meaning 'Islam abounding', is one of the names of
Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
used after the Ottoman conquest of 1453. An example from
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
is the word ''
shatranj Shatranj ( ar, شطرنج; fa, شترنج; from Middle Persian ''chatrang'' ) is an old form of chess, as played in the Sasanian Empire. Its origins are in the Indian game of chaturaṅga. Modern chess gradually developed from this game, as i ...
'' 'chess', which is derived from the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
''chatur-anga'' ("four-army
ame #REDIRECT AME #REDIRECT AME {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
{{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...
; 2nd century BCE), and after losing the ''u'' to syncope, became ''chatrang'' in
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
(6th century CE). Today it is sometimes factorized as ''sad'' 'hundred' + ''ranj'' 'worry, mood', or 'a hundred worries'. In Turkey, the political
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...
changed its logo in 2007 to a white horse in front of a red background because many voters folk-etymologized its Turkish name ''Demokrat'' as ''demir kırat'' ("iron white-horse").


See also

*
Backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
*
Chinese word for "crisis" The Chinese word for "crisis" () is, in Western popular culture, frequently but incorrectly said to be written with two Chinese characters signifying "danger" (, ) and "opportunity" (, ). The second character is a component of the Chinese word ...
*
Eggcorn An eggcorn is the alteration of a phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,, sense 2 creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used ...
*
Etymological fallacy An etymological fallacy is committed when an argument makes a claim about the present meaning of a word based exclusively on that word's etymology. It is a genetic fallacy that holds a word's Semantic change, historical meaning to be its sole vali ...
*
Expressive loan Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words o ...
*
False etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...
*
False friend In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...
*
Folk linguistics Folk linguistics consists of statements, beliefs, or practices concerning language which are based on uninformed speculation rather than the scientific method. Folk linguistics sometimes arises when scientific conclusions about language come off as ...
*
Hobson-Jobson ''Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive'' is a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages which came in ...
*
Hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...
*
Hyperforeignism A hyperforeignism is a type of qualitative hypercorrection that involves speakers misidentifying the distribution of a pattern found in loanwords and extending it to other environments, including words and phrases not borrowed from the language th ...
*
Johannes Goropius Becanus Johannes Goropius Becanus () (23 June 1519 – 28 June 1573), born Jan Gerartsen, was a Dutch physician, linguist, and humanism, humanist. Life He was born Jan Gerartsen van Gorp in the hamlet of Gorp, Netherlands, Gorp, in the municipality o ...
*
Nirukta ''Nirukta'' ( sa, निरुक्त, , "explained, interpreted") is one of the six ancient Vedangas, or ancillary science connected with the Vedas – the scriptures of Hinduism.James Lochtefeld (2002), "Nirukta" in The Illustrated Encyclope ...
*
Okay ''OK'' (spelling variations include ''okay'', ''O.K.'', ''ok'' and ''Ok'') is an English word (originating in American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. ''OK'' is frequently ...
*
Phono-semantic matching Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words or ...
*
Pseudoscientific language comparison Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudo-scholarship that aims at establishing historical associations between languages by naïve postulations of similarities between them. While comparative linguistics also studies the historic ...
*
Semantic change Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from ...
*
Slang dictionary A slang dictionary is a reference book containing an alphabetical list of slang, which is vernacular vocabulary not generally acceptable in formal usage, usually including information given for each word, including meaning, pronunciation, and ety ...
* Wiktionary list of back-formations * Wiktionary list of rebracketings


References


Further reading

* *
Anatoly Liberman Anatoly Liberman (russian: Анато́лий Си́монович Либерма́н; born 10 March 1937) is a linguist, medievalist, etymologist, poet, translator of poetry (mainly from and into Russian), and literary critic. Liberman is a pro ...
(2005). ''Word Origins ... and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone''. Oxford University Press. . *
Adrian Room Adrian Richard West Room (27 September 1933, Melksham – 6 November 2010, Stamford, Lincolnshire)''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2002; accessed 20 May 2013. was a British toponymist and onomastician, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical So ...
(1986). ''Dictionary of True Etymologies''. Routledge & Kegan Paul. . *
David Wilton David Wilton (born 1967 or 1968) is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in a by-election on July 14, 2015. He represented the district of Cape Breton Centre as a member of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party. H ...
(2004). ''Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends''. Oxford University Press. . {{DEFAULTSORT:False Etymology Etymology Comparative linguistics Linguistics Folklore Linguistic error Semantic relations