Word of the Day

: February 9, 2009

metathesis

noun muh-TATH-uh-sis

What It Means

a : a change of place or condition: as

b : transposition of two phonemes in a word

c : a chemical reaction in which different kinds of molecules exchange parts to form other kinds of molecules

metathesis in Context

When I listened to the recording of the child's speech, I noticed several instances of metathesis.

Did You Know?

One familiar example of metathesis is our word "thrill," which was "thyrlian" in Old English and "thirlen" in Middle English. By the late 16th century, native English speakers had switched the placement of the "r" to form "thrill." Another example is the alteration of "curd" into "crud" (the earliest sense of which was, unsurprisingly, "curd"). It probably won't surprise you to learn that the origin of "metathesis" lies in the idea of transposition -- the word was borrowed into English in the mid-16th century and derives, via Late Latin, from the Greek verb "metatithenai," meaning "to transpose."