Table of contents

1 English 1.1 Noun 1.2 Synonyms 1.3 See also

English

Noun

folk etymology (plural folk etymologies)

1. An attempted but incorrect etymology of a word, based on the word's similarity to others rather than research into the origin of the word; examples of words having folk etymologies are gay, golf, posh and spam, all of which claim, with no evidence, that these words are acronyms.

Synonyms

• popular etymology

See also

• eggcorn , egg corn
• malapropism
• mondegreen
• Wikipedia article on folk etymologies