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folk etymology

noun
🔊/ˈfəʊk etɪmɒlədʒi/
🔊/ˈfəʊk etɪmɑːlədʒi/
(also popular etymology)
[uncountable, countable]
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  1. a popular but wrong belief about the origin of a word or phrase
    • This explanation may simply be a folk etymology.这种解释可能只是一种民间词源。
  2. a process by which a word is changed, for example because people believe that it is related to another word, even though it is not, or to make a foreign word sound more familiar民间词源；俗词源学
    • Folk etymology has created the cheeseburger and the beanburger, but the first hamburgers were in fact named after the city of Hamburg.民间词源创造了 cheeseburger 和 beanburger，但最初 hamburger 一词实际上是以德国汉堡市命名的。🔊🔊