Pronounced: KREH-puh-tate, verb
Notes: I don’t think I’ve every run across this word
Yesterday’s word
The word metathesis means
- the transposition of letters, sounds, or syllables in a word
- in chemistry, double decomposition
First usage
This word goes back to the mid-1500s
Background / Comments
It’s the first definition that I referred to yesterday. An example would be saying “aks” instead of “ask” (I remember having trouble with this as a child, and I still mangle words every now and then). The word came into English from Latin, but came into Latin from the Greek word metatithenai (to transpose), which is made up of meta- (among, after) and tithenai (to place).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 