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# spoonerism

«spoonerism» in Mova's school dictionary: **a slip of the tongue where you swap the first sounds of…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a spoonerism, spoonerisms)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A spoonerism is a slip of the tongue where you swap the first sounds of two words, often by accident and with a funny result: «a well-boiled icicle» instead of «a well-oiled bicycle». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#m1)

2) It is named after William Spooner, an Oxford teacher who was said to make this mistake often. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In English and language lessons it is a fun wordplay puzzle, often used in jokes and olympiad word games; it shows how we plan sounds before we speak. Phrases: «make a spoonerism», «a famous spoonerism».

### examples

- «Tease my ears» for «ease my tears» is a spoonerism. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x1)
- Saying «fighting a liar» instead of «lighting a fire» is a spoonerism. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x2)
- Our teacher made a spoonerism and said «bunny phone» for «funny bone». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x3)
- Write three spoonerisms of your own. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x4)
- Many famous spoonerisms were probably invented by Spooner's students. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x5)
- A spoonerism swaps sounds, not letters: «chew the dores» for «do the chores». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/#x6)

### note

Countable. Spoonerisms swap sounds, so spelling may change. Most famous examples credited to Spooner were made up by others.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «spoonerism» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/spoonerism/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.