Etymology of the Word Pea: A Singular Mistake

The secret life of words

Chapter 1

Secrets hidden in our food

Chapter 2

Words born from ancient myths

Chapter 3

Words created by accident

Chapter 4

Global travelers in English

YOUR GOAL

Master of The secret life of words

Ch 3 · Words created by accident

I just realized word and verb actually come from the same ancient root.

schopenhauer Discover the shared ancient root of the words 'word' and 'verb' in this engaging etymology infographic.

schopenhauer Dord

Oh my dord, oh my dord! A ghost word in the dictionary!

schopenhauer Getting a nickname from an eke

Cleopatra lived closer to the iPhone than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

schopenhauer See how backup seeds travel to frozen Arctic chambers to prevent crop extinction.

The singular mistake of the pea

schopenhauer The word 'pea' was created because English speakers mistakenly thought the singular word 'pease' was plural.

*Word Flukes* (Good)
* *Spin a Word* (

BETA

schopenhauer Spin the wheel to discover the surprising origins of everyday words.

Fun Fact

Syllabus typo: The word syllabus does not exist in classical Latin or Greek; it is entirely the result of a printer's mistake.

Glossary

ghost word (noun)
A word that entered a dictionary or reference work as a result of a printing, scribal, or typographical error. The famous example dord mistakenly appeared in a 1934 dictionary due to a misinterpreted abbreviation for density.

Gossip

Should we keep changing words when we make mistakes?

Quiz

Which common academic word, meaning a course outline, was created by a 15th-century printing mistake when editors misread a word in the letters of the Roman statesman Cicero?

schopenhauer The typo that became a word

Getting a nickname from an eke

schopenhauer The word 'nickname' was originally 'an eke name', meaning an additional or added name.

Quiz

The English word 'apron' was created by a spoken language accident called 'rebracketing'. What was the original spelling of this protective garment in Middle English before listeners mistakenly shifted the starting 'N' to the word 'a'?

schopenhauer How an apron lost its letter N

Quiz

What does the modern term "doomscrolling" refer to?

schopenhauer The singular mistake of the pea

Quiz

The word 'sherry' was back-formed because English speakers thought the Spanish city name 'Xeres' was what?

Quiz

Why did English speakers drop the 's' from 'pease' to create the word 'pea'?

Quiz

The word 'syllabus' was created due to a 15th-century printing error of which Roman author's manuscript?

Quiz

How did the word 'umpire' lose its initial letter N from the original French word 'nompere'?