English Explanatory Dictionary

folk etymology

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A popular explanation for the origin of a term which has been rejected as false by expert etymologists.
  2. A modification of a word or its spelling resulting from a misunderstanding of its etymology, as with island, belfry, and hangnail.

Pronunciation

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-folk etymology.wav

Word forms

folk etymology folk etymologies

Etymology

English from the 1880s (Abram Smythe Palmer, 1882), a calque of German Volksetymologie (1820s, in 1821 as Volks-Etymologie in J. A. Schmeller's Die Mundarten Bayerns grammatisch dargestellt).

Synonyms

etymythology fake etymology false etymology pseudoetymology paraetymology paretymology popular etymology

Related words

catachresis eggcorn folk linguistics goropism Hobson-Jobson malapropism misnomer mondegreen phono-semantic matching reanalysis rebracketing surface etymology

Derived words

folk-etymological folk-etymologically folk etymologist folk-etymologize

Translations

Albanian: etimologji popullore Armenian: ժողովրդական ստուգաբանություն Breton: etimologiezh-pobl Catalan: etimologia popular Chinese Mandarin: 俗詞源學 /俗词源学 Chinese Mandarin: 望文生義 /望文生义 Chinese Mandarin: 俗詞源 /俗词源 Czech: lidová etymologie Czech: bakalářská etymologie Danish: folkeetymologi Dutch: volksetymologie Esperanto: popola etimologio Esperanto: paretologio Finnish: kansanetymologia French: étymologie populaire Galician: etimoloxía popular Georgian: ხალხური ეტიმოლოგია German: Volksetymologie Greek: παρετυμολογία Hungarian: népi etimológia Indonesian: etimologi rakyat Indonesian: etimologi populer Italian: falsa etimologia Italian: pseudoetimologia Italian: paretimologia Japanese: 民間語源 Korean: 민간어원 Malay: etimologi rakyat Norwegian Bokmål: folkeetymologi Norwegian Nynorsk: folkeetymologi Polish: etymologia ludowa Polish: etymologia popularna Polish: etymologia potoczna Polish: pseudoetymologia Portuguese: etimologia popular Portuguese: pseudoetimologia Romanian: etimologie populară Russian: наро́дная этимоло́гия Serbo-Croatian: pučka etimologija Sicilian: etimuluggìa fausa Sicilian: paretimuluggìa Slovak: ľudová etymológia Spanish: etimología popular Spanish: paretología Spanish: paretimología Spanish: etimología sacha Spanish: etimología folklórica Swedish: folketymologi Tagalog: palamuhatang-bayan Vietnamese: từ nguyên dân gian Welsh: camdarddiad poblogaidd
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