Definitions

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

  • noun Words or phrases which sound the same as another word or phrase. Example would be 'I scream' and 'ice cream' or, the way the letters 'ICQ' play on the words 'I seek you'.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • It is here that wordplay itself could be seen to do the work of philosophy — where, for instance, to put it directly in terms of Agamben's triangularion of voice, death, and negativity, the ricochets of language can themselves remind us (via oronym and metalinguistic irony) that "never say die" is possible only for those who "never said I."

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

  • (Scherif Ibn-Idris.) — In vertice ejus montis infigne templum (Hie - oronym.) non ibi eflet Templum, fed montcm uti factum in honore eiflet Gentibus.

    Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis 1786

  • Byronic rhyme, for such a four-word monosyllabic liaison — this unwieldy oronym — yet it is strongly urged upon the ear by the otherwise jolting truncation, syllabic and grammatical both, of the echoic "as we!" [

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

Comments

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  • Apparently coined by Gyles Brandreth in his work The Joy of Lex.

    July 8, 2008

  • It predates Brandreth's work (1980), for example, Madison S. Heeler, "The Californian oronym and toponym Montara." Romance Philology 20: 35-39 (1966).

    July 8, 2008

  • oronym – a string of words which is homophonic with another string of words, e. g.:

    The stuffy nose can lead to problems.

    The stuff he knows can lead to problems.

    I'm taking a nice cold shower.

    I'm taking an ice cold shower.

    July 19, 2008

  • My citation is for a different, apparently older, meaning: the name of a mountain or other orographic feature.

    July 19, 2008