oronym
English
[edit]Pronunciation
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Audio (General American): (file)
Etymology 1
[edit]From oro- (“of mountains”) + -onym.
Noun
[edit]oronym (plural oronyms)
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) |
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oronym (plural oronyms)
- 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."