This is a list of Hungarian words with metathesis, that is, a swapping of sounds near the end of their stem before certain suffixes.
Word | Accusative | Meaning | Front/back | Note |
---|---|---|---|---|
boholy | bolyhot | villus/fluff/fuzz/nap | back | chiefly in the plural; the form bolyh exists as well |
kehely | kelyhet | chalice | front | |
moholy | molyhot | down/pubescence (on plants) | back | technical term in botany |
pehely | pelyhet | flake | front | |
teher | terhet | burden | front | |
vehem | vemhet | animal’s fetus | front | obsolete; currently only used in vemhes (“pregnant ”) |
Several present-day forms were created via metathesis, which affected the whole lexeme along with all their forms: bicska, csinnadratta, csiperke, dunyha, elegyít (one hypothesis), emel (one hypothesis), enyh (and enyhe), érsek (one hypothesis), fetreng, husáng, kaláris, kályha, kandalló, kanyaró, káplár, karalábé, karcol, kóc, konyha, köp from pök, kulcs, langaléta (one hypothesis), lanyha, lomha, mazsola, orv (one hypothesis), penész, püspök, sárga, somolyog, suviszk/subick (dialectal forms of suviksz, present in folksy suvickol), szelindek, szikra (one hypothesis), szöcske, szütyő, tacskó, talicska, tarack, tasak, ténfereg, tesped, tömlő, törpe, tülök, vincellér, zacskó, zubog (one hypothesis).[1]