1st Cycle Vocab

Acronym

A word formed from the initial letters of a name or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words.

Affix

A word element, such as a prefix or suffix, that is attached to a base, stem, root.

Coinage

The invention of new words

Colloquial

Used in or suitable to spoken language or to writing that imitates speech; conversational

Malapropism

The use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but humorously wrong in the context.

Onomatopoeia

The formation or use of a word that imitates or resembles what it stands for.

Palindrome

A word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward.

Portmanteau

A word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two different words; blend.

Simile

A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as.

Spoonerism

An accidental but humorous distortion of words in a phrase formed by interchanging the initial sounds.