noun
- plural of metathesis: the transposition of sounds or letters in a word
Usage: linguistics
Examples
- The word ‘ask’ becoming ‘aks’ is one of the most common metatheses in English.
- Historical metatheses explain why ‘bird’ was once spelled ‘brid’.
- Children often produce metatheses when learning to speak, saying ‘aminal’ for ‘animal’.
- Linguists study metatheses to understand how languages change over time.
- The pronunciation ‘nucular’ for ‘nuclear’ represents a modern example of metatheses.
- Several metatheses occurred during the evolution from Old English to Middle English.