mondegreen

mon·de·green

noun

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.

Origin of mondegreen

After (Lady) Mondegreen a misinterpretation of the line (hae laid) him on the green from the song “The Bonny Earl of Murray”

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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"mondegreen." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 09 April 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/mondegreen>.

APA Style

mondegreen. (n.d.). Retrieved April 09th, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/mondegreen

Noun

(plural mondegreens)

A form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase
(rare) A misunderstanding of a written or spoken phrase as a result of multiple definitions.

Origin

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 have slain the Earl of Murray, / And laid him on the green" (misheard as “Lady Mondegreen").

English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.

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