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folk etymology

noun

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).

  1. derived from Volksetymologie
  2. derived from from the 1880s

Definitions

  1. A popular explanation for the origin of a term which has been rejected as false by expert…

    A popular explanation for the origin of a term which has been rejected as false by expert etymologists.

    • Many English folk etymologies involve backronyms.
    • It is not improbable that, in some locality where tram-roads were a novelty, their name may have been associated in folk-etymology or by pre-scientific etymologers with that of the engineer.
    • He even sharked up a false or "folk" etymology in which saunter is made to derive from sainte terre, making the saunterer a crusader.

  2. A modification of a word or its spelling resulting from a misunderstanding of its…

    A modification of a word or its spelling resulting from a misunderstanding of its etymology, as with island, belfry, and hangnail.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for folk etymology. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA