Eggcorn Definition: 10 Eggcorn Examples

An eggcorn is a reinterpretation of a misheard phrase. For instance, someone may hear the term “social leper” and be unaware of what a leper is—this causes them to think they must have actually heard a person say “social leopard” instead.

Other examples could be exchanging “mute point” for “moot point,” “tenderhooks” for “tenterhooks,” “upmost” for “utmost,” “lack toast” for “lactose,” or “ice tea” for “iced tea.” Most words and phrases can become eggcorns in muffled conversation.

The term eggcorn is actually an eggcorn in its own right. In response to an article by language expert Mark Liberman on this then-unnamed phenomenon, linguist Geoffrey Pullum related the case of a woman who thought you pronounced the word acorn as “eggcorn.” This single mix-up became a catchall term for all other similar mistakes.

Mishearing words and phrases and then reinterpreting them is fairly common. When this linguistic event happens, it’s an eggcorn. Here are ten examples of common eggcorns:

1. 1. Alzheimer’s disease/old-timer’s disease: Since this neurological condition mainly affects older individuals, some mistakenly believe it’s pronounced “old-timer’s disease.” Despite the similar pronunciation, it’s important to get this one right for reasons of both linguistic correctness and sensitivity.
2. 2. Coleslaw/cold slaw: This side dish comes to your table “cold,” so you might think that’s the first syllable you’re hearing in its name. “Coleslaw” is a cold dish, but that’s incidental to its actual name.
3. 3. Damp squib/damp squid: The word “squib” has fallen out of fashion since the origin of this phrase. This leads many to think the expression is “damp squid.”
4. 4. Dog-eat-dog world/doggy-dog world: The phrase “dog-eat-dog world” refers to a world of brutal competition and unavoidable ferocity. “Doggy-dog world,” the eggcorn alternative, suggests something far more pleasant.
5. 5. Expatriate/ex-patriot: Given that “expatriates” leave their home countries, some might think that makes them “ex-patriots.” However, the words have distinct definitions.
6. 6. Fetal position/feeble position: Even though a growing fetus may be quite feeble, the position it takes refers to its name rather than that adjective. “Fetal” rather than “feeble” is the correct word in this turn of phrase.
7. 7. Free rein/free reign: The original phrase here means giving people more freedom, a reference to using a horse’s reins loosely while riding. The eggcorn accidentally points to a ruler or monarch.
8. 8. Intents and purposes/intensive purposes: This is perhaps one of the most common eggcorns. However, you should pronounce and write “for all intensive purposes” as “for all intents and purposes.”
9. 9. Scapegoat/escape goat: When you try to pin the blame on a person, you “scapegoat” them. The term “escape goat” might sound amusing, but it’s incorrect.
10. 10. Pass muster/pass mustard: If someone “passes muster,” they meet the criteria of a given situation, but to “pass mustard” is to hand over a condiment.

Eggcorns are reinterpretations of misheard phrases. Though other instances of accidental wordplay might sound like synonyms to eggcorns at first, they are distinct. Here are five more ways we jumble the English language:

1. 1. Folk etymologies: While an eggcorn can refer to just one person’s misinterpretation of a word or phrase, a folk etymology references something much broader. This term denotes a word so widely misunderstood that it’s become a new word in and of itself in a linguistic or cultural group. For example, “hamburger” originally referred to a person from Hamburg, Germany, but people came to associate the term with a beef sandwich, and then eventually “burger” with sandwiches of various meats (notably, almost never ham)—or even no meat at all.
2. 2. Homonyms and homophones: You have a homonym on your hands when a word can mean two or more separate things. Consider the word “log.” It can mean a piece of wood—as in “that log from the oak tree”—or a place where you record data—as in “my language log.” While people spell and pronounce homonyms the same way, homophones merely need to sound the same, as in “overdo” and “overdue.”
3. 3. Malapropisms: Eggcorns cause new words to come into existence as a result of misinterpretation, while malapropisms mistakenly replace one existing (but similar-sounding) word with another. For example, an “unbridged audiobook” rather than an “unabridged audiobook.”
4. 4. Mondegreens: Eggcorns that specifically derive from poems and songs are mondegreens. Writer Sylvia Wright coined the term after a line in a Thomas Percy poem—”layd him on the green”—which she misheard as “Lady Mondegreen.”
5. 5. Spoonerisms: These slips of the tongue switch some of the letters from one word to the next. For instance, the “word of the day” might become the spoonerism “dord of the way,” or “New York” might become “Yew Nork.”

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