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The first known use of the word literally was in the 15th century, [1] or the 1530s, [2] when it was used in the sense of "in a literal sense or manner". [1]The use of the word as an intensifier for figurative statements emerged later, in 1769, [3] [4] when Frances Brooke wrote the following sentence: [3]
Bisect means "to cut into two"; dissect means "to cut apart", both literally and figuratively. Disect is an archaic word meaning "to separate by cutting", but has not been in common use since the 17th century. Standard: The Americas are bisected by the Panama canal. Standard: She dissected Smith's dissertation, pointing out scores of errors.
A malapropism (/ ˈ m æ l ə p r ɒ p ɪ z əm /; also called a malaprop, acyrologia or Dogberryism) is the incorrect use of a word in place of a word with a similar sound, either unintentionally or for comedic effect, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance.
No one has perfect mastery of the English language, but these 15 commonly misused words make even the smartest people sound silly.
According to WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and we need to be careful not to be indiscriminate and allow any obscure misuse to be listed and only indicate those as described in the title as being "commonly misused" (which was previoudly "frequently misused"). linca linca 06:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC) Oppose ...
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...
But he thinks that’s a misuse of the word. “Underrated means you’re not appreciated. And it’s difficult to genuinely appreciate something when you don’t know about it. So it’s not that ...
This word is the past tense of a verb that means "to throw or hurl forcefully." OK, that's it for hints—I don't want to totally give it away before revealing the answer!