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
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 Seward, A. C. (Albert Charles)
The names of their fathers are alike, and "Luqman" means devourer, swallower, a meaning which might be got out of Balaam by a popular etymology.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" by Various
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 Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
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.
