mondegreen

noun
/ˈmɒndəɡɹiːn/UK/ˈmɑndəɡɹiːn/US

Etymology

Coined by American journalist and editor Sylvia Wright in 1954 in Harper's Magazine from mishearing a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o' Moray: “They have slain the Earl o' Moray, / And laid him on the green”, the second line being misheard as, “And Lady Mondegreen”.

Definitions

  1. A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase,…

    A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase, possibly in a different language.

  2. A misunderstanding of a written or spoken phrase as a result of multiple definitions.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mondegreen. 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