malaprop
noun
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malaprop
1 American
[mal-uh-prop]
/ ˈmæl əˌprɒp /
noun
Malaprop
2
American
[mal-uh-prop]
/ ˈmæl əˌprɒp /
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of malaprop
First recorded in 1815–25; see origin at Malaprop
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
After it ended, Caps coach Bryan Murray flipped that phrase into a perfect postmortem malaprop: “Everybody tried so damn hard. It’s a shame somebody had to win.”
From Washington Post ● May 8, 2020
He makes his appearance with the malaprop assumption that Churchill is “Church Hill,” and he squeezes the last drop of embarrassment out of this blunder and all those to come.
From The New Yorker ● May 18, 2016
Rodriguez meant baggage, but no one needed to correct him — not when he played for an organization that was home for so many decades to the master of the malaprop, Yogi Berra.
From New York Times ● Mar. 12, 2016
A malaprop, by the way, is defined as an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 29, 2015
You’re officially the malaprop king, Nick, he says.
From "Booked" by Kwame Alexander
Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals features Mrs Malaprop exclaiming, "he is the very pineapple of politeness!"
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2020
Malapropisms take their name from the character Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan’s 1775 play “The Rivals.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2017
“The Rivals” is the Brinsley play that gave the world Mrs. Malaprop, the character whose reliably errant instinct for language inspired the word “malapropism.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 26, 2017
Once again, the text is a bilingual -- or sublingual -- mash-up of Spanish and English that makes Mrs. Malaprop of “The Rivals” seem like a Rhodes scholar.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2015
Malaprop is puzzled to know what people mean when they talk of the present alarming Junction of affairs.
From Mr. Punch's Railway Book by Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
