eggcorn

Meaning

Noun

• deformation of character instead of defamation of character
• for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes
• free reign instead of free rein
• old timer's disease instead of Alzheimer's disease
• on tender hooks instead of on tenterhooks
• An idiosyncratic but semantically motivated substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound identical, or nearly so, at least in the dialect the speaker uses.

Origin

• Suggested by British-American linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum (born 1945) following a discussion on the Language Log website on September 23, 2003 by American linguist Mark Liberman about a woman who had long believed the word acorn to be egg corn.