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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mondegreen.

A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase, possibly in a different language.

10 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmɒndəɡɹiːn/UK/ˈmɑndəɡɹiːn/US
  1. A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase, possibly in a different language.

  2. A misunderstanding of a written or spoken phrase as a result of multiple definitions.

    rare
Where this word comes from

Coined by American journalist and editor Sylvia Wright in 1954 in Harper's Magazine from mishearing a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o' Moray: “They have slain the Earl o' Moray, / And laid him on the green”, the second line being misheard as, “And Lady Mondegreen”.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.