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When something is aberrant, it is unusual, not socially acceptable, or a departure from the norm.
When you absolve someone, you publicly and formally say that they are not guilty or responsible for any wrongdoing.
When you allude to something or someone, often events or characters from literature or history, you refer to them in an indirect way.
If one thing is analogous to another, a comparison can be made between the two because they are similar in some way.
The antithesis of something is its opposite.
If you conflate two or more descriptions or ideas, you combine them in order to produce a single unit.
If someone shows consummate skill at doing something, that person’s skill is very great or almost perfect in every way.
Decorous appearance or behavior is respectable, polite, and appropriate for a given occasion.
Errant things or people behave in a way that is unacceptable or wrong, such as a missile that travels in the wrong direction or a student who does not follow classroom rules.
Something exacting needs a lot of care, skill, and attention to carry out.
A fallacy is an idea or belief that is false.
Someone who is indiscreet shows lack of judgment, especially because they say or do things in public that should only be said or done privately—if at all.
Someone is considered meticulous when they act with careful attention to detail.
Probity is very moral and honest behavior.
Propriety is behaving in a socially acceptable and appropriate way.
To be punctilious is to pay precise attention to detail.
Something is quintessential when it is a perfect example of its type.
A scrupulous person takes great care to do everything in an extremely honest, conscientious, and fair manner.
If you commit a solecism, you make an error of some kind, such as one of a grammatical or social nature.
If you repeat something verbatim, you use the same words that were spoken or written.
Noun
malapropism
MAL-uh-prop-iz-uhm
Context
We all commit malapropisms or humorous misuse of words now and then, especially young children. My niece calls successful business people “typhoons” or storms at sea rather than “tycoons” or powerful business people, an excellent malapropism. She gets her tendency to use mixed-up words or malapropisms from her father, who insists that the government must be “physically” responsible, instead of “fiscally” or financially responsible. My favorite malapropism of my brother’s was when he stated that Winston Churchill was a man of great “statue”—instead of great “stature,” or standing.
Quiz:Try again!
What is a malapropism?
A phrase that makes others laugh because it is clever.
A word spoken by mistake that is very close to the intended word.
A linguistic device that uses more than one meaning of one word.
A malapropism is an unintentional and usually humorous mistake you make when you use a word that sounds similar to the word you actually intended to use but means something completely different.
Mallard Propeller When the mallard kicked his feet like a boat propeller, he tried to utter "vroom," but he made a malapropism and instead bellowed "quack!"
Examples
Malaprop, or malapropism, is the term for misspoken words. ''Through unchartered seas'' is an example cited by Fowler's handbook.
—
The New York Times
The genre of blooper I receive most often is the malapropism.
—
The New York Times
Malapropism was coined from the character Mrs. “Malaprop” in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Rivals; she is always making language errors as she speaks because she really doesn’t know the meanings of the words that she is using. Mrs. Malaprop is so called because she makes “bad fits” for words, such as using “allegory” in “she’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile”—she should have used “alligator,” not “allegory.”
Word Theater
Laurel and Hardy The words "infatuated" and "infuriated" are malapropisms--the correct word is "infested."
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
