folk etymology

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folk etymology

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English from the 1880s (Abram Smythe Palmer, 1882), a calque of German Volksetymologie (1820s, in 1821 as Volks-Etymologie in J. A. Schmeller's Die Mundarten Bayerns grammatisch dargestellt).

folk etymology (countable and uncountable, plural folk etymologies)

1. A misunderstanding of the etymology of a word based on an inexpert analysis; an etymology that incorrectly explains the origin of a word based on the inadequate judgement of a common speaker of the language instead of etymological expertise.

   Synonyms: etymythology, fake etymology, false etymology, pseudoetymology, paraetymology, paretymology

   Many English folk etymologies involve backronyms.

   • 1926, James A.H. Murray, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, volume X, part I, page 248, column 1:

     It is not improbable that, in some locality where tram-roads were a novelty, their name may have been associated in folk-etymology or by pre-scientific etymologers with that of the engineer.

   • 1986, Robert Richardson, Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, Berkeley: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 237:

     He even sharked up a false or "folk" etymology in which saunter is made to derive from sainte terre, making the saunterer a crusader.

2. A modification of a word or its spelling resulting from a misunderstanding of its etymology, as with island, belfry, and hangnail.

   Synonym: popular etymology

   • 1882, Abram Smythe Palmer, Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions, London: George Bell, →OCLC, page 654:

     SURCEASE owes its form and meaning to a remarkable folk-etymology, as has been pointed out by Prof. Skeat:—"It is obvious, from the usual spelling, that this word is popularly supposed to be allied with cease, with which it has no etymological connexion."

   • 2006, Shaligram Shukla, Jeff Connor-Linton, “Language change”, in Ralph Fasold, Jeff Connor-Linton, editors, An Introduction to Language and Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 296:

     Thus hamburger (whose true etymology is 'city of Hamburg' + er 'someone from') has been reanalyzed as ham + burger 'burger made with ham.' [...] Subsequently, on the analogy of this folk etymology, new forms such as cheeseburger, chiliburger, and plain burger have been created.