"phantonym" meaning in English

See phantonym in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: phantonyms [plural]
Etymology: From phant(om) + -onym, with self-aware influence from antonym; Macmillan Dictionary reports that corpus searches have found that the word seems to have been coined several times [probably independently], with several meanings all related to wordplay, accidental gaps, or catachresis, as long ago as 1993 (by Irwin M. Berent, referring to comical neologisms such as bebig, analogous to embiggen) and most recently in 2009, by Jack Rosenthal, as an -onym term for words whose sound or appearance makes them liable to be used catachrestically. Etymology templates: {{suffix|en|phantom#Noun|onym|alt1=phant(om)}} phant(om) + -onym Head templates: {{en-noun}} phantonym (plural phantonyms)
  1. A word that appears to mean one thing but actually means something else. Example: the English word noisome, which appears to be related to noise, but actually refers to something with an offensive smell (odor). Such terms are predisposed toward catachrestic use (including malapropisms) by speakers and writers. Wikipedia link: Jack Rosenthal (journalist) Related terms: false friend (english: entailing a similar phenomenon interlingually, when translation is occurring)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phantom#Noun",
        "3": "onym",
        "alt1": "phant(om)"
      },
      "expansion": "phant(om) + -onym",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From phant(om) + -onym, with self-aware influence from antonym; Macmillan Dictionary reports that corpus searches have found that the word seems to have been coined several times [probably independently], with several meanings all related to wordplay, accidental gaps, or catachresis, as long ago as 1993 (by Irwin M. Berent, referring to comical neologisms such as bebig, analogous to embiggen) and most recently in 2009, by Jack Rosenthal, as an -onym term for words whose sound or appearance makes them liable to be used catachrestically.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "phantonyms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "phantonym (plural phantonyms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [
            "Links with manual fragments",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -onym",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
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        }
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2009 September 25, Jack Rosenthal, “Phantonym. On Language column”, in New York Times Magazine, retrieved 2023-02-07:",
          "text": "High-school juniors across the country, facing their first Preliminary SAT exams, are engrossed in improving their vocabulary. Here's a thought that might help: A word that means the opposite of another is an antonym; a word that looks as if it means one thing but means quite another could be called a phantonym, and warrants wariness. ¶ Phantonyms pop up in the usage of even so careful a speaker as President Obama. As William Safire noted in March, when the president said that he wanted the American people to have \"a fulsome accounting\" for his stimulus program, he meant full, whereas to punctilious authorities the word means disgusting, excessive, insincere. […] Likewise, noisome does not mean noisy but smelly, unhealthful. […] Enormity does not mean enormous but great wickedness, a monstrous act.",
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      ],
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        "A word that appears to mean one thing but actually means something else. Example: the English word noisome, which appears to be related to noise, but actually refers to something with an offensive smell (odor). Such terms are predisposed toward catachrestic use (including malapropisms) by speakers and writers."
      ],
      "id": "en-phantonym-en-noun-vBhoXNgr",
      "links": [
        [
          "noisome",
          "noisome#English"
        ],
        [
          "noise",
          "noise#English"
        ],
        [
          "smell",
          "smell#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "catachrestic",
          "catachresis#English"
        ],
        [
          "malapropisms",
          "malapropism#English"
        ]
      ],
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          "word": "false friend"
        }
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      "wikipedia": [
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      ]
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      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From phant(om) + -onym, with self-aware influence from antonym; Macmillan Dictionary reports that corpus searches have found that the word seems to have been coined several times [probably independently], with several meanings all related to wordplay, accidental gaps, or catachresis, as long ago as 1993 (by Irwin M. Berent, referring to comical neologisms such as bebig, analogous to embiggen) and most recently in 2009, by Jack Rosenthal, as an -onym term for words whose sound or appearance makes them liable to be used catachrestically.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "phantonyms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "phantonym (plural phantonyms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "english": "entailing a similar phenomenon interlingually, when translation is occurring",
      "word": "false friend"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English links with manual fragments",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms suffixed with -onym",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Requests for audio pronunciation in English entries",
        "Requests for pronunciation in English entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2009 September 25, Jack Rosenthal, “Phantonym. On Language column”, in New York Times Magazine, retrieved 2023-02-07:",
          "text": "High-school juniors across the country, facing their first Preliminary SAT exams, are engrossed in improving their vocabulary. Here's a thought that might help: A word that means the opposite of another is an antonym; a word that looks as if it means one thing but means quite another could be called a phantonym, and warrants wariness. ¶ Phantonyms pop up in the usage of even so careful a speaker as President Obama. As William Safire noted in March, when the president said that he wanted the American people to have \"a fulsome accounting\" for his stimulus program, he meant full, whereas to punctilious authorities the word means disgusting, excessive, insincere. […] Likewise, noisome does not mean noisy but smelly, unhealthful. […] Enormity does not mean enormous but great wickedness, a monstrous act.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "A word that appears to mean one thing but actually means something else. Example: the English word noisome, which appears to be related to noise, but actually refers to something with an offensive smell (odor). Such terms are predisposed toward catachrestic use (including malapropisms) by speakers and writers."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "noisome",
          "noisome#English"
        ],
        [
          "noise",
          "noise#English"
        ],
        [
          "smell",
          "smell#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "catachrestic",
          "catachresis#English"
        ],
        [
          "malapropisms",
          "malapropism#English"
        ]
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Jack Rosenthal (journalist)"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "phantonym"
}

Download raw JSONL data for phantonym meaning in English (3.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.