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 vowelsη andυ , and to the diphthongsει ,ῃ ,οι , andυι indiscriminately. This is the rule in modern Greek. Also calleditacism . 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
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[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
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The spelling "Lite" is incorrect and comes from iotacism.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy 1840-1916 1913
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