folk etymology的意思|示意

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Folk etymology, also called popular etymology, is the historical reinterpretation of a word or phrase to accord with the speakers' existing language or knowledge. The process by which words acquire a new meaning is called semantic change. It is one of the most common ways that new words or phrases come into existence.

Folk etymology is a linguistic process by which a word or phrase is changed or modified to make it resemble more closely another word or phrase. This usually happens when a person hears or reads a word or phrase and does not understand it. The person then attempts to substitute a more familiar word or phrase that sounds or looks similar to the original. Such substitutions are often incorrect and provide only an approximate meaning of the original word or phrase.

Folk etymology can happen when a foreign loanword is borrowed into a language. For example, the Spanish word \\"cara\\" (face), when borrowed into English, became \\"care,\\" which has a completely different meaning than the original word. There are also other examples of folk etymology in English, such as \\"lunar\\" (from the Latin \\"lunaris,\\" meaning moon) being changed to \\"lunatic,\\" and \\"omnivore\\" (from the Latin \\"omnis,\\" meaning all) being changed to \\"omnivorous.\\"

Folk etymology is not always wrong, however; sometimes it results in a more accurate meaning than the original. For example, the word \\"bourgeois\\" was originally derived from the French \\"bourg,\\" meaning a small town. However, the use of the word in English came to refer to people of the middle class, which better reflects the current meaning in English than the original French meaning.

In summary, folk etymology is a process by which a word or phrase is changed or modified to make it resemble more closely another word or phrase. This can occur when a foreign loanword is borrowed into a language, or when a word or phrase is reinterpreted to better reflect the current understanding of the language. Folk etymology can lead to either an inaccurate or a more accurate meaning than the original.