folk etymology
noun/ˈfəʊk etɪmɒlədʒi/
/ˈfəʊk etɪmɑːlədʒi/
(also popular etymology)
[uncountable, countable]- a popular but wrong belief about the origin of a word or phrase
- This explanation may simply be a folk etymology.
- a process by which a word is changed, for example because people believe that it is related to another word, even though it is not, or to make a foreign word sound more familiar
- Folk etymology has created the cheeseburger and the beanburger, but the first hamburgers were in fact named after the city of Hamburg.
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folk etymology