Word.ws English Dictionary

anthimeria

/ænθɪˈmɪəɹiə/

anthimeria noun: the use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another, in English typically the use of a noun as if it were a verb.

Noun

anthimeria (usually uncountable, plural anthimerias)

  1. (rhetoric, usually) The use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another, in English typically the use of a noun as if it were a verb.
    • Not only is "I googled that hottie" great publicity for the company, but it's fresh and funny and an excellent example of how anthimeria gives English an invigorating slap upside the head.2006 July 9, Ben Yagoda, “Language: The moving parts of speech”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • Consider some other examples of anthimeria using slightly different types of words in the noun slot: Crystal's slogans "Full of Wow" and "Full of Yum," and the popular use of fail as a noun, as in "an epic fail" or "buckets of fail."2014 May 13, James Harbeck, “How advertisers trick your brain by turning adjectives into nouns”, in The Week

Forms of anthimeria

pluralanthimerias
alternative formantimeria

Origin of anthimeria

Learned borrowing from New Latin antimeria, from Latin anti- (from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ντῐ- (ăntĭ-, “opposite”)) + Ancient Greek μέρος (méros, “part”) + Latin -ia, with non-etymological ⟨h⟩.

Questions about anthimeria

What does anthimeria mean?
Anthimeria means the use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another, in English typically the use of a noun as if it were a verb.
What part of speech is anthimeria?
Anthimeria is a noun.
How do you pronounce anthimeria?
Anthimeria is pronounced /ænθɪˈmɪəɹiə/.
What is the plural of anthimeria?
The plural of anthimeria is anthimerias.

Words near anthimeria in the dictionary

  1. anthicids
  2. anthicine
  3. anthicines
  4. anthill
  5. anthills
  6. anthimeria
  7. anthimerias
  8. anthiolimine
  9. anthippasia
  10. antho-
  11. anthocarp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anthimeria (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-anthimeria.wav.

Cite this entry: “anthimeria.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anthimeria. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.