1. the transposition of sounds or letters in a word
Usage: linguistics
2. a chemical reaction in which two compounds exchange ions or atoms to form two new compounds
Usage: chemistry

Examples

• The word ‘ask’ became ‘aks’ through metathesis of the ‘s’ and ‘k’ sounds.
• Metathesis explains how ‘wasp’ was historically pronounced ‘waps’ in some dialects.
• The pronunciation of ‘comfortable’ as ‘comfterble’ shows metathesis in action.
• In chemistry class, we studied metathesis reactions between silver nitrate and sodium chloride.
• The metathesis reaction produced two new ionic compounds from the original reactants.
• Linguists study metathesis to understand how languages change over time.
• The child’s pronunciation showed metathesis when saying ‘spaghetti’ as ‘pasghetti’.