oronym

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology 1

[edit]

From oro- (of mountains) +‎ -onym.

Noun

[edit]

oronym (plural oronyms)

  1. The toponym of a mountain.

Etymology 2

[edit]

Coinage usually attributed to Gyles Brandreth (see quotation below). The etymology is unexplained, but perhaps from or +‎ -onym.[1]

Noun

[edit]
Examples (phrases or sentences that sound the same)
  • "I scream" / "ice cream"
  • "that's tough" / "that stuff"
  • "four candles" / "fork handles"

oronym (plural oronyms)

  1. A phrase or sentence that sounds the same as another phrase or sentence.
    • [1980, Gyles Brandreth, The Joy of Lex, New York, NY, United States: William Morrow and Company, Inc., page 58:
      [] sometimes what you hear isn't what you're supposed to hear. Oronyms are sentences that can be read in two ways with the same sound.]
    • 2008, Paul McFedries, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weird Word Origins, page 101:
      An oronym that comes from mishearing the lyrics of a song is most often called a mondegreen.
    • 2010, Andrew Nevins, Locality in Vowel Harmony, page 203:
      Vowel harmony may serve the purpose of parsing the morphosyntactic words in phrases (i.e., oronym avoidance).
    • 2012, Rod L. Evans, chapter 14, in Tyrannosaurus Lex:
      The comedian Jeff Foxworthy often uses oronyms in his Appalachian comedy routine, as when he uses a sentence with moustache: "I moustache [must ask] you a question."

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Stewart, G. (2015). The Deed of Reading: Literature * Writing * Language * Philosophy (p. 237). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. →DOI

Anagrams

[edit]