Word.ws English Dictionary

spoonerism

/ˈspuː.nəɹˌɪ.zəm/

spoonerism noun: a play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.

Noun (1)

spoonerism (plural spoonerisms)

  1. (rhetoric) A play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.
    • Undergraduates at Oxford University were playfully fond of Spooner, whom they nicknamed "the Spoo". They also coined the term "spoonerism" around 1885, after Spooner had been a fellow at New College for almost twenty years. By 1892, his reputation for absentmindedness was well known; students came...2007, Michael Erard, Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, page 16
    Synonyms:
    marrowsky

Noun (2) capitalized: Spoonerism

Spoonerism (plural Spoonerisms)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of spoonerism.
    • A Spoonerism may sometimes alter the whole tenor of a person’s career. An extremely bashful man was asked to find the elderly daughter of the house, who was in the garden, and ask her to make tea. “Miss Florence,” he said, when he discovered her in the rosery, “I have come to ask if you will take...1919, Jessie Pope, “Spoonerisms”, in Pearson’s Magazine, volume XLVIII, page 535, column 1
    • I am not going to put on any weight until I’m fifty, when I shall allow myself to become matronly, ready to be a follower of ‘soda and gobbly matrons’, as enjoined by the marriage service. (A good Spoonerism that, created quite involuntarily by my mother some years ago.)1976 July, Oxford Diocesan Magazine, page 15, column 1; quoted in “spoonerism”, in R[obert] W[illiam] Burchfield, editor, A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, volumes IV (Se–Z), Oxford...

spoonerism meaning in Thai

spoonerism in Thai

phrase where sounds are transposed
คำผวน kam-pǔuan

Synonyms of spoonerism

Forms of spoonerism

pluralspoonerisms
alternative formSpoonerism
pluralSpoonerisms

Origin of spoonerism

From Spooner + -ism, named after Oxford don Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who is supposed to have habitually made such slip-ups.

Questions about spoonerism

What does spoonerism mean?
Spoonerism means a play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.
What is spoonerism in Thai?
Spoonerism in Thai is คำผวน (kam-pǔuan). See Spoonerism meaning in Thai.
What part of speech is spoonerism?
Spoonerism is a noun.
How do you pronounce spoonerism?
Spoonerism is pronounced /ˈspuː.nəɹˌɪ.zəm/.
What is the plural of spoonerism?
The plural of spoonerism is spoonerisms.

Words near spoonerism in the dictionary

  1. Spoonemores
  2. spooner
  3. Spooner Row
  4. spoonered
  5. spoonering
  6. spoonerism
  7. spoonerisms
  8. spooneristic
  9. spooneristically
  10. spoonerize
  11. spoonerized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spoonerism (page history and authors); Spoonerism (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: en-au-spoonerism.ogg, en-us-spoonerism.ogg.

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