WORD OF THE DAY
A malapropism occurs when you say one word but you mean another, like instead of saying a certain restaurant is prosperous, you say it is preposterous. As you can tell, malapropisms are often humorous, though sometimes the joke is on the speaker.
The word malapropism, pronounced "mah-luh-PRAH-pih-zum," comes from the French phrase mal à propos, which means "ill-suited." Playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan must have been thinking of the French phrase when he created his character Mrs. Malaprop, who made audiences howl with laughter when she used the wrong word. Examples include saying "allegory" instead of "alligator," and "illiterate him from your memory" instead of "obliterate."
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Vocabulary lists containing malapropism
The words on this list all describe other words: their nature, function, or origin. Learn them and consider yourself a citizen of the word!
In 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four African-American girls. In this memoir, survivor Carolyn Maull McKinstry recounts the bombing and life in the South under Jim Crow laws.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, based on historical events, traces the harrowing story of two boys sent to a Florida reformatory school in the 1960s.
Kwame Alexander scores again with this story about the soccer-playing son of a linguistics professor. This list of words can assist your goal of improving your vocabulary.
