popular etymology
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of popular etymology
First recorded in 1875–80
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.
It hurts me to pour icy water upon that straw-grasping desperation that is popular etymology - ie the jolly tales that would seem so perfect when tracing a word's background.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2014
The popular etymology that derives the word from Big Turtle, is still farther back in the chain of etymology, and is founded on the fact that the michi are turtle spirits.
From Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
The solar deity, Phoibos Lykegenes, was originally the "offspring of light"; but popular etymology made a kind of werewolf of him by interpreting his name as the "wolf-born."
From Myths and myth-makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology by John Fiske
The popular etymology is valuable as confirming the proposition to place Belili in the pantheon of the lower world.
From The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria by Morris Jastrow
They lie in the Upper Valley of the Kokcha, called Korán, within the Tract called Yamgán, of which the popular etymology is Hamah-Kán, or "All-Mines," and were visited by Wood in 1838.
From The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Henry Yule
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.
