Word.ws English Dictionary

folk etymologies

folk etymologies is the plural of folk etymology.

Meaning of folk etymology

Noun

folk etymology (countable and uncountable, plural folk etymologies)

  1. A popular explanation for the origin of a term which has been rejected as false by expert etymologists.
    • Many English folk etymologies involve backronyms.
  2. A modification of a word or its spelling resulting from a misunderstanding of its etymology, as with island, belfry, and hangnail.
    • 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."1882, Abram Smythe Palmer, Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions, London: George Bell, →OCLC, page 654

Questions about folk etymologies

What is folk etymologies the plural of?
Folk etymologies is the plural of folk etymology.

Words near folk etymologies in the dictionary

  1. folk dancers
  2. folk dances
  3. folk dancing
  4. folk devil
  5. folk devils
  6. folk etymologies
  7. folk etymologist
  8. folk etymologists
  9. folk etymologize
  10. folk etymologized
  11. folk etymologizes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: folk etymologies (page history and authors); folk etymology (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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