Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. In Greek, the pronunciation of certain letters, like eta and upsilon, as iota (ē) because of a regular sound change.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Conversion of other vowel sounds into that of iota (English ē); specifically, in pronunciation of Greek, the practice of giving the sound of iota (
ι ) also to the vowelsη andυ , and to the diphthongsει ,ῃ ,οι , andυι indiscriminately. This is the rule in modern Greek. Also called itacism. Opposed to etacism. Compare lambdacism, rhotacism.
Wiktionary
- n. A misspelling resulting from such pronunciation.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The frequent use of the sound of iota (that of English e in be), as among the modern Greeks; also, confusion from sounding ε, ι, η, υ, ει, etc., like ι.
Etymologies
- Late Latin iōtacismus, from Greek iōtakismos, from iōta, iota; see iota. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“[Page 323] macism or imperfect pronunciation of g; iotacism, defective pronunciation of the gutturals; mogilalia, imperfect pronunciation of the labials, and according to some authors, as Preyer, mogilalia is made to include also the suppression of the first sound of a word.”
“The spelling "Lite" is incorrect and comes from iotacism.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘iotacism’.
-
Medical terms or linguistic terms?
That's a terrible ablative case. Get me some morpheme, stet!
stet, stat, morpheme, morphine, ablative case, salmonella, morphology, nephrology, alethic modality, anaphoric clitic, bolus, hyperbole and 54 more...
-
Most Obscure Words
acatalectic, acosmism, acuate, acuminate, adscititious, adytum, akratisma, alieniloquy, allelomorph, allochiria, allodium, alnage and 620 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for iotacism.

Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.