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 old interpretation “save, now!” which may be a popular etymology, is based on Ps. cxviii.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 7 "Horticulture" to "Hudson Bay" by Various
Beyond Tomi, where a popular etymology fixed the ‘cutting up’ of Apsyrtos, we need not follow the fortunes of Jason and Medea.
From Custom and Myth New Edition by Andrew Lang
From there it seems to have passed into Germany where potatoes were not cultivated extensively till the eighteenth century, and "tartufel" has in later times through some popular etymology been metamorphosed into "Kartoffel".
From Darwin and Modern Science by A. C. (Albert Charles) Seward
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.
