Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun In Greek, the pronunciation of certain letters, like eta and upsilon, as iota (ē) because of a regular sound change.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Conversion of other vowel sounds into that of iota (English ē); specifically, in pronunciation of Greek, the practice of giving the sound of iota (ι) also to the vowels η and υ, and to the diphthongs ει, , οι, and υι indiscriminately. This is the rule in modern Greek. Also called itacism. Opposed to etacism. Compare lambdacism, rhotacism.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The frequent use of the sound of iota (that of English e in be), as among the modern Greeks; also, confusion from sounding ε, ι, η, υ, ει, etc., like ι.

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

  • noun A misspelling resulting from such pronunciation.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin iōtacismus, from Greek iōtakismos, from iōta, iota; see iota.]

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Examples

  • [Page 323] macism or imperfect pronunciation of g; iotacism, defective pronunciation of the gutturals; mogilalia, imperfect pronunciation of the labials, and according to some authors, as Preyer, mogilalia is made to include also the suppression of the first sound of a word.

    The Montessori Method Anne E. Montessori George 1912

  • The spelling "Lite" is incorrect and comes from iotacism.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy 1840-1916 1913

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