Word glossary

A friendly tour of how English works, from A to Z. You'll find every kind of word you might land on in Spinonym, plus plenty of other quirks worth knowing. The colour shows which part of the wheel each one belongs to.

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• Acronym Word-building

  A word made from the first letters of a phrase, said as a word.

  e.g. scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

• Acrostic Word-building More wordplay

  A poem or puzzle where the first letter of each line spells out a word.

  e.g. lines starting C, A, T spell cat

• Alliteration Sound & spelling Figure of speech

  Several words close together that start with the same sound.

  e.g. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

• Anagram Sound & spelling

  The same letters rearranged to make a new word.

  e.g. listen becomes silent

• Antonym Meaning

  A word with the opposite meaning.

  e.g. hot and cold

• Aptagram Sound & spelling More wordplay

  An anagram whose new words suit the original’s meaning.

  e.g. astronomer → moon starer, dormitory → dirty room, the eyes → they see

• Aptronym Names More wordplay

  A person’s name that suits their job or what they’re known for.

  e.g. sprinter Usain Bolt

• Assonance Sound & spelling Figure of speech

  Words that share the same vowel sound, but end differently. A kind of half rhyme.

  e.g. tangerine and dream

• Autological word Meaning More wordplay

  A word that describes itself.

  e.g. short is short, and English is English

• Backronym Word-building Bonus

  A phrase invented afterwards to fit a word that already existed.

  e.g. SOS as “Save Our Souls”

• Calque Word-building More wordplay

  A phrase translated word for word from another language.

  e.g. flea market, from the French marché aux puces

• Capitonym Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A word that changes meaning when it gets a capital letter.

  e.g. polish your shoes, Polish food

• Clipping Word-building More wordplay

  A longer word cut short, which then becomes a word in its own right.

  e.g. flu, from influenza

• Collective noun Meaning More wordplay

  The word for a group of things, especially animals.

  e.g. a murder of crows

• Consonance Sound & spelling Figure of speech

  Words that share the same consonant sounds, but have different vowels. The flip side of assonance.

  e.g. blank and think

• Contronym Meaning Bonus

  One word with two opposite meanings.

  e.g. dust: to sprinkle it on, or to wipe it off

• Cryptonym Names More wordplay

  A code name used to keep something secret.

  e.g. Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings

• Demonym Names Bonus

  The name for people from a particular place.

  e.g. someone from Glasgow is a Glaswegian

• Eggcorn Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A misheard word or phrase that still sort of makes sense. Named after “eggcorn” for acorn.

  e.g. “for all intensive purposes” instead of intents and purposes

• Endonym Names More wordplay

  The name a place or people use for themselves.

  e.g. Deutschland for Germany, Cymru for Wales

• Eponym Names

  A word named after a real person.

  e.g. wellington boots, after the Duke of Wellington

• Euphemism Meaning More wordplay

  A gentler way of saying something blunt or awkward.

  e.g. passed away instead of died

• Exonym Names More wordplay

  The name outsiders use for a place or people. The opposite of an endonym.

  e.g. Germany for Deutschland

• Half rhyme Sound & spelling Figure of speech

  Words that nearly rhyme but not quite. Also called slant rhyme or near rhyme. Assonance and consonance are both kinds.

  e.g. tangerine and dream, worm and swarm

• Heteronym Sound & spelling More wordplay

  Spelt the same, but said differently and with a different meaning. A type of homograph.

  e.g. take a bow, tie a bow

• Holonym Meaning More wordplay

  The whole thing that a part belongs to. The opposite of a meronym.

  e.g. car is the holonym of wheel

• Homograph Sound & spelling

  Spelt the same, but with a different meaning, and sometimes a different sound.

  e.g. a tear in your eye, a tear in your shirt

• Homonym Sound & spelling More wordplay

  Spelt and said the same, but with a different meaning.

  e.g. a bat that flies, a cricket bat

• Homophone Sound & spelling

  Sounds the same, but is spelt differently and means something else.

  e.g. night and knight

• Hyperbole Meaning Figure of speech

  Deliberate exaggeration, not meant to be taken literally.

  e.g. I’ve told you a million times

• Hypernym Meaning

  The umbrella word for a whole group of things.

  e.g. rose, tulip and daisy are all flowers

• Hypocorism Names More wordplay

  A pet name or shortened, friendly form of a name.

  e.g. Bob for Robert

• Hyponym Meaning

  One specific example from a group. The opposite of a hypernym.

  e.g. a poodle is a type of dog

• Idiom Meaning Figure of speech

  A phrase that means something different from its individual words.

  e.g. a piece of cake, meaning easy

• Initialism Word-building More wordplay

  Like an acronym, but you say each letter separately.

  e.g. BBC

• Isogram Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A word where no letter appears more than once.

  e.g. lumberjacks

• Kangaroo word Meaning More wordplay

  A word that hides a word with the same meaning inside it, letters in order, like a joey in a pouch.

  e.g. rapscallion hides rascal

• Kenning Word-building More wordplay

  A poetic two-word name for something, loved by Old English and Norse poets.

  e.g. whale-road for the sea

• Lipogram Sound & spelling More wordplay

  Writing that avoids one letter completely.

  e.g. Gadsby, a whole novel without the letter e

• Litotes Meaning More wordplay

  Saying something by denying its opposite. A very British habit.

  e.g. not bad, meaning good

• Loanword Word-building More wordplay

  A word borrowed from another language and used as it is.

  e.g. café, from French

• Malapropism Sound & spelling More wordplay

  Using the wrong word by mistake because it sounds like the right one, often with funny results.

  e.g. “she danced the flamingo” instead of flamenco

• Meronym Meaning More wordplay

  A word for a part of something bigger.

  e.g. wheel is a meronym of car

• Metaphor Meaning Figure of speech

  Saying one thing is another, to describe it.

  e.g. time is money

• Metonym Meaning More wordplay

  Something closely linked to a thing, used to stand in for it.

  e.g. the Crown for the monarchy

• Mondegreen Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A misheard line, usually from a song, poem or prayer.

  e.g. “Gladly the cross-eyed bear” for “Gladly the cross I’d bear”

• Mononym Names More wordplay

  Someone known by just one name.

  e.g. Adele

• Neologism Word-building More wordplay

  A newly invented word or phrase.

  e.g. staycation

• Onomatopoeia Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A word that sounds like the noise it describes.

  e.g. buzz, sizzle, splash

• Oronym Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A phrase that sounds exactly like a different phrase.

  e.g. ice cream and I scream

• Oxymoron Meaning More wordplay

  Two words with opposite meanings used together.

  e.g. deafening silence

• Palindrome Sound & spelling

  Reads the same forwards and backwards.

  e.g. level

• Pangram Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.

  e.g. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

• Portmanteau Word-building

  Two words squashed together to make a new one.

  e.g. smoke + fog = smog

• Pseudonym Names

  A made-up name someone uses instead of their real one.

  e.g. Samuel Clemens wrote as Mark Twain

• Retronym Word-building Bonus

  A new name for an old thing, needed because something newer came along.

  e.g. landline, once mobile phones arrived

• Rhyming slang Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A phrase that stands in for a word it rhymes with, often shortened. Famously Cockney.

  e.g. apples and pears means stairs

• Semordnilap Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A word that spells a different word backwards. The name is “palindromes” spelt backwards.

  e.g. stressed becomes desserts

• Simile Meaning Figure of speech

  Comparing two things using “like” or “as”.

  e.g. as brave as a lion

• Spoonerism Sound & spelling More wordplay

  Swapping the first sounds of two words, usually by accident.

  e.g. “fighting a liar” instead of lighting a fire

• Synonym Meaning More wordplay

  A word with the same or a very similar meaning.

  e.g. big and large

• Tautonym Sound & spelling More wordplay

  A word made of the same part said twice.

  e.g. couscous, bonbon

• Tmesis Word-building More wordplay

  Splitting a word in two by dropping another word into the middle, usually for emphasis.

  e.g. abso-bloody-lutely

• Toponym Names Bonus

  A word that comes from a place name.

  e.g. cheddar, from the village in Somerset

• Unpaired word Word-building More wordplay

  A word with a prefix like un- or dis-, whose plain partner has fallen out of use.

  e.g. unkempt, but nobody is ever kempt

• Zeugma Meaning More wordplay

  One word doing two jobs at once, often in two different senses.

  e.g. she lost her keys and her temper