Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.
  • noun An example of such misuse.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act or habit of misapplying words through an ambition to use fine language.
  • noun A word so misapplied.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A grotesque misuse of a word; a word so used.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The blundering use of an absurdly inappropriate word or expression in place of a similar sounding one.
  • noun countable An instance of this; malaprop.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From malaprop.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the name of Mrs. Malaprop, a character in the play The Rivals (1775) by Richard Brinsley Sheridan + -ism. As dramatic characters in English comic plays of this time often had allusive names, it is likely that Sheridan fashioned the name from malapropos ("inappropriate"). Mrs. Malaprop is perhaps the best-known example of a familiar comedic character archetype who unintentionally substitutes inappropriate but like-sounding words that take on a ludicrous meaning when used incorrectly.

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