Link Centre Dictionary

spoonerism

spoo·ne·rism

UK/ˈspuː.nəɹˌɪ.zəm/ uncommon

noun

1.

transposition of initial consonants in a pair of words

Origin

From Spooner + -ism, named after Oxford don Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844-1930), who is supposed to have habitually made such slip-ups.

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.