back-spelling
/ˈbækˌspɛlɪŋ/
back-spelling noun: an unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it.
Noun
back-spelling
- An unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it.
- Modern English numb is a back-spelling, because this word never had a /b/ in it. The back-spelling is based on words such as lamb, which had once ended in /b/, but where this sound was lost and the letter b became silent.
- For example, in D and w, e is a possible reflex for OE y: (29) cysan, presumably a back-spelling for cesen < ceosen, and (40) hylle, a back-spelling for helle.1996, Eric Gerald Stanley, “Late Copies of Anglo-Saxon Charters”, in Studies in English Language & Literature: "doubt Wisely" : Papers in Honour of E.G. Stanley, page 55
- Synonyms:
- inverse spelling
Synonyms of back-spelling
Forms of back-spelling
| alternative form | backspelling |
|---|
Origin of back-spelling
From back + spelling.
Questions about back-spelling
- What does back-spelling mean?
- Back-spelling means an unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it.
- What part of speech is back-spelling?
- Back-spelling is a noun.
- How do you pronounce back-spelling?
- Back-spelling is pronounced /ˈbækˌspɛlɪŋ/.
Words near back-spelling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: back-spelling (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “back-spelling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/back-spelling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.