folk-etymological

English

Adjective

folk-etymological (comparative more folk-etymological, superlative most folk-etymological)

1. Pertaining to folk etymology.
   • 1905, Lee Milton Hollander, Prefixal S in Germanic, Together with the Etymologies of Fratze, Schraube, Guter Dinge, Baltimore, Md.: J. H. Furst Company, page 29:

     In fact, it would seem that puerca is the folketymological form; […]

   • 1971, Demetrius J Georgacas, The Names for the Asia Minor Peninsula and a Register of Surviving Anatolian Pre-Turkish Placenames, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, →ISBN, page 121:

     Zafarambol (Zafranbolu, Safranbolu). The name has not been explained properly (Ramsay, HG 324, from Θεοδωρίαν πόλιν is impossible; Wittek, Byz. 10 [1935] 40 note 4: from (εἰ)ς Άδριανούπολιν with folketymological transformation is not convincing); […]

   • 1981 fall, Henry and Renée Kahane, “Byzantium’s Impact on the West: The Linguistic Evidence”, in Miroslav Marcovich, editor, Illinois Classical Studies, volume VI.2, Scholars Press, →ISSN, page 393:

     In medical terminology, καταμήνια katamḗnia n.pl. 'menstruation' (derived from μήν mḗn 'month') was taken up by Oribasius latinus (6th c.) as cataminia with Middle Fr. catimini; the i of the latter reflected the folketymological influence of catir 'to hide', which also accounted for the semantic shift of the French idiom en catimini 'in secret'.

   • 1996, Daniel Ogden, Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods (Oxford Classical Monographs), Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 183:

     Their rejection, to a certain extent, of the role of nurturing mothers was symbolized by their searing of their right breasts, a practice justified by folk-etymological derivations of their name from a-privative and mazos, ‘breast’ (although the ostensible purpose of the searing was to facilitate bowmanship, and Amazons are often spoken of as rearing children).

   • 1999, Thomas Gill Creel, How Cozening a Word is this Community, Community College Teachers and Democratic Pedagogy: An Ethnographic Inquiry, University of Minnesota, pages 17–18:

     As Georges Van Den Abbeele has noted, the OED offers two etymologies: “the more philologically valid formation of the word from com + munis (that is, with the sense of being bound, obligated, or indebted together) and the more folk-etymological combination of com + unus (or what is together as one)” (xi).

   • 2001, Andrew McIntyre, German Double Particles as Preverbs: Morphology and Conceptual Semantics, Stauffenburg-Verlag, →ISBN, page 56:

     Those who deny the synchronic relevance of backformation would hold that backforming x from y is simply the folk-etymological assumption that x is the derivational source of y.

   • 2002, Jaan Puhvel, Epilecta Indoeuropaea: Opuscula Selecta Annis 1978–2001 Excusa Imprimis ad Res Anatolicas Attinentia, Innsbruck, →ISBN, pages 1243 (152) – 1244 (153):

     Whatever the further ramifications of such a Greek-Iranian term for ‘sieve’ (*pelwi- : plewi-, lost in common usage in Greek), it short-circuits customary Greek root-etymologies, not just such standbys as πολύς/πλείων ‘many’ or πλέος ‘full’ or Lat. pulvis ‘dust’ / Skt. palā́va-, Lith. pelai̇̃ ‘chaff’, but also folketymological connections with πλέω ‘sail’ (implicit in Hesiod, Erga 618-626, where the setting of the Pleiades in late October marks the end of the seafaring season) and πέλεια or πελειάς ‘dove’.

   • 2002, Patrick Hanks, Flavia Hodges, A.D. Mills, Adrian Room, The Oxford Names Companion, Oxford University Press, page 357:

     The name [Kuhl] has been altered by folketymological association with the High Ger. word kuhl cool (MHG küele).