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mondegreen

/ˈmɑndəɡɹiːn/noun

mondegreen is a noun meaning “A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase, possibly in a different language” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-O-N-D-E-G-R-E-E-N, and it appears about once in every 69 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of mondegreen is mondegreens.

What does mondegreen mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A form of (possibly intentional) error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase, possibly in a different language.

  2. 2

    rareA misunderstanding of a written or spoken phrase as a result of multiple definitions.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce mondegreen?

  • UK /ˈmɒndəɡɹiːn/
  • US /ˈmɑndəɡɹiːn/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-mondegreen.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of mondegreen

  • mondegreens plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is mondegreen?

Mondegreen appears about once in every 69 million words in written English, the 262,293rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Mondegreen in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense mishearing:

LanguageWords
GermanVerhörer
Portuguesetiocidade, virundum
Spanishpomporruta

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does mondegreen come from?

Coined by American journalist and editor Sylvia Wright in 1954 in Harper's Magazine from mishearing a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o' Moray: “They have slain the Earl o' Moray, / And laid him on the green”, the second line being misheard as, “And Lady Mondegreen”.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).