Did you perchance mean nondegree?
Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric. For example, I led the pigeons to the flag for I pledge allegiance to the flag.
Wiktionary
Etymologies
- Coined by Sylvia Wright in Harper’s Magazine (The Death of Lady Mondegreen, Nov 1954) from a mishearing of a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonny Earl of Murray: "They hae slay the Earl of Murray, / And laid him on the green" (misheard as “Lady Mondegreen”). (Wiktionary)
- After (Lady) Mondegreen, a misinterpretation of the line (hae laid) him on the green, from the song "The Bonny Earl of Murray”. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'm so glad to have the term mondegreen now; it will surely vie with "earworm" for usefulness.”
“It involves a quirky novel written by MANDY GREEN (yep, a mondegreen of "mondegreen") whose story centers on a mondegreen ( "Gesundheit Whistle" misheard as GAZOON HIGH TWIZZLE).”
“It's called "mondegreen," and it means "the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase, such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.”
Shawn Amos: "Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy" & Other Misheard Lyrics
“It's a 'mondegreen', from The Bonnie Earl O' Murray:”
“One thing led to another, and now I’m the administrator of a flaky effort called Mandy Green Project, largely aimed at helping make "mondegreen" a household word.”
“Not a mondegreen, but it's also advisable not to forget yr mum's in the car with you and start singing along to Rocks by Primal Scream.”
“It's either that or Tony Danza is a common mondegreen.”
“They'll particularly like the page "What is a mondegreen?", with a killer video full of 'em.”
“I'm a native of Vermont, and this is my favorite mondegreen (from the Beach Boys '"Kokomo"):”
“It's the '76 Manfred Mann's Earth Band cover that's responsible for the signature mondegreen on this one.”
Shawn Amos: "Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy" & Other Misheard Lyrics
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mondegreen’.
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Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 241 more...
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Open List: Greens
A lits of greens: cooked leafy vegetables; pigments, paint names, compound words, etc; words and phrases that pertain to or contain "green". Please add your favorites!
See this list f...greenery, collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, green shoots, viridian green, malachite green, sap green, green grocer, radish greens, beet greens, spring green and 282 more...
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A Sequel to 250 Spelling Words
Words to quiz the intermediate and advanced speller alike
amatorio, esemplastic, etesian, cholecystitis, chantepleure, paternoster, mondegreen, aporia, kairos, idioglossia, klepht, phansigar and 238 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
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Lyngwistix
semantic, semiotic, linguistic, etc.
lexeme, sonorant, prosody, monophthong, portmanteau, dithyramb, inflection, deixis, mondegreen, screed, persiflage, polysemy and 42 more...
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Neologisms
'New' words.
neurogami, sexting, plussies, plussy, churnalism, hecka, greenwashing, greenwash, Blogistan, diactrize, subsume, cachebusting and 27 more...
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ze list
favorites, of all sorts
obscure, pretentious, debacle, vintage, ostentatious, damsel, plethora, requiem, memoir, loathe, lackadaisical, misanthropic and 82 more...
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Gram-Lang
pleonastic, synecdoche, solecism, virgule, fricative, altiloquent, chrestomathy, orthography, mondegreen, polysemy, zeugma, Syllepsis and 9 more...
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Linguistic Terms
Words that (mostly) only linguists know.
arpabet, protologism, diacritic, macron, macaronic, capitonym, grapheme, boustrophedon, allograph, analphabetic, idiomatic, portmanteau and 40 more...
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Metawords
Talking about talking, writing about writing, etc.
epizeuxis, tautological, aptote, bibliophagist, parataxis, scriptorium, aposiopesis, variorum, chantefable, boustrophedon, psellism, adoxography and 51 more...
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Words for everyday things
tittle, lunule, crepuscular ray, ferrule, gynecomastia, muntin, akimbo, skeuomorph, paresthesia, obdormition, phosphene, armscye and 9 more...
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EN - autological words and phrases
Words and phrases expressing a property which they also possess themselves: "noun" is a noun, "English" is English, etc. If W means W AND W is (a) W, then W is an autological item. Very often but n...
noun, polysyllabic, abbrv., word, common, English, lovely, sesquipedalian, heterological, short, term, terminus technicus and 63 more...
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Of Curious Provenance
Words with interesting etymologies.
boustrophedon, octothorpe, neurogami, shampoo, rubric, vernacular, ovolo, mojo, sycophant, wiki, obstreperous, geezer and 8 more...
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INTERP - verbal blunders
Speech errors and speech disfluencies
boner, gaffe, malapropism, Freudian slip, blooper, speech disfluency, phonological anti..., phonological pers..., gibberish, repetition, blend, slip of the tongue and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mondegreen.

harmonygritz Never mind the "shoping" sic distraction-- more mondegreens at Jon Carroll's column archives. Oct 18, 2011
Wordplayer There is actually an entire game based on mondegreens...it's called Mad Gab.
Sep 20, 2011
yarb I think there's a name for sentence-length mondegreens like that - a French word maybe?
The big challenge is to find two such sentences which both make sense individually. Sep 20, 2011
ravendesk Won miniature aunt opt then extra sue she.
(One minute you're on top, the next you're sushi.) Sep 20, 2011
myth Cue the Groucho Marx jokes:
Groucho: "That's in every contract, that's what you call a sanity clause."
Chico: "You can't a fool a me there ain't no Santy Claus"
Minister: "We need to take up the tax"
Groucho: "I'd like to take up the carpet."
Minister: "I still insist we take up the tax."
Groucho: "He's right - you've gotta take up the tacks before you can take up the carpet."
"Do you rumba?"
"Why, yes!"
"Well, pick a rumba between one and ten."
- Not sure if it counts if you misunderstand yourself. :)
Chico: "Who are you?"
Groucho: "Im fine, thanks. Who are you?"
Ice Water? Get some Onions - that'll make your eyes water! May 17, 2009
reesetee Thanks, yarb--knew there was at least one other one somewhere. Oct 22, 2008
yarb And yet more here. Oct 22, 2008
reesetee Also here and here.
Oct 21, 2008
frindley More mondegreens here. Apr 27, 2008
sionnach Gladly, the cross-eyed bear, thinks this word is awesome. Nov 1, 2007
tellurian I can never quite get the image of Vienna Teng carring an axe convincingly out of my head.... Oct 31, 2007
cathari I used to hear "Lucy and this guy with diamonds" (I assumed they were getting married.) Oct 31, 2007
abraxaszugzwang can we start a misheard lyrics page?
"There's a bathroom on the right." Feb 7, 2007
chained_bear Wow. Is that the origin of this word? Never knew that...
"'Scuse me while I kiss this guy."
--Jimi Hendrix (not)
By the way, interesting article on how the human brain can distinguish time intervals between phonemes with a 90% accuracy rate is in Newsweek this week (Feb. 12, 2007, p.14, or http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16961082/site/newsweek/), from whence I ripped off this example. :) Feb 7, 2007
seanahan Ye Highlands, and ye Lawlands
Oh where have you been?
They have slain the Earl of Murray,
And they layd him on the green. Dec 12, 2006