hypercorrect
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Back-formation from hypercorrection.
Adjective
hypercorrect (comparative more hypercorrect, superlative most hypercorrect)
Derived terms
- hypercorrective, hyper-corrective
- hypercorrectly
- hypercorrectness, hyper-correctness
- hypercorrectism, hyper-correctism
Translations
nonstandard because of a mistaken idea of standard usage
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Verb
hypercorrect (third-person singular simple present hypercorrects, present participle hypercorrecting, simple past and past participle hypercorrected)
- (transitive) To change (a word or phrase) to an nonstandard form in the mistaken belief that it is standard usage.
- 2007 October 28, William Safire, “And Now This”, in New York Times[1]:
- I use reduplicate to mean redouble, though both words should mean quadruple, but English is funny that way, so hold off on the hypercorrecting gotcha!