Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun linguistics A word that changes sound and meaning when the
case is changed; a case-sensitive word.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
capital + -onym
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Examples
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skipvia commented on the word capitonym
Words that have a different meaning depending on capitalization, such as polish and Polish.
November 15, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word capitonym
Not to be a killjoy, but... is this capitonym, or captionym? (The pronuncation is different depending on where the I is.)
November 15, 2007
skipvia commented on the word capitonym
It's capitonym. Captionym is not a word. I mistyped the word originally and deleted it immediately when I realized my mistake. It's still showing up, however.
I hereby renounce all claim to being a Wordie.
November 15, 2007
john commented on the word capitonym
skipvia... shhhh... just make up a definition, pretend you meant it! See captionym for my attempt.
November 15, 2007
reesetee commented on the word capitonym
Skipvia, apparently you haven't attended the University of Madeupical Etymology. There's still time to enroll!
November 15, 2007
mollusque commented on the word capitonym
Does that mean I have to make up a definition for "pointsettia"? As soon as I entered it I saw my typo, but I just tagged it as a misspelling.
November 15, 2007
skipvia commented on the word capitonym
It means you're just not a typie.
November 15, 2007
sionnach commented on the word capitonym
Not to be a contrarian or anything, but I always believed that, for a word to be a capitonym, both the meaning *and the pronunciation* had to change depending on capitalization.
Thus, reading and polish qualify, but john, for instance, does not.
November 15, 2007
ruzuzu commented on the word capitonym
See usage note on Chile.
March 7, 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word capitonym
Oh, yay! Thanks to Wiktionary, we finally have an official definition for capitonym:
"Wiktionary (1 definition)–noun
(linguistics) A word that changes sound and meaning when the case is changed; a case-sensitive word."
The fox was right (of course)!*
*But I'm still going to pronounce lower-cased "capitonym" as captionym. (It's too late--I've already recorded it.) See Chile.
November 5, 2010