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Comments on What is the term for a word that is an instance of itself?

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What is the term for a word that is an instance of itself?

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Some words are examples of the concept they name. Examples:

  • "Word" is a word.
  • "Noun" is a noun.
  • "Eggcorn" is an eggcorn (a mistaken word that sounds like and has some connection to another word) for "acorn."
  • "Mondegreen" is a mondegreen; the word comes from mishearing the song line "laid him on the green" as "Lady Mondegreen."

What is the word for words of this kind? One site that I found gives "word that describes itself" as one of the meanings of "autonym," but I can't find any other confirmation of this usage.

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1 comment thread

Instance or canonical case? (2 comments)
Instance or canonical case?
matthewsnyder‭ wrote over 1 year ago

Are you asking about all words who happen to exemplify the concept? Or just the word which named the concept? Eggcorn and mondegreen are the latter, "word" and "noun" are the former (the concept of a noun was not first studied by looking at the word "noun").

gmcgath‭ wrote over 1 year ago

Either one, if there's a generally accepted name for it.