This site is devoted to collecting the kind of unusual English spellings that have come to be called eggcorns. Eggcorn, the word, is a coinage that goes back to the excellent Language Log. The About page retraces the history of the term and offers more information on how this site came to be.

The Eggcorn Database went public on February 15, 2005. It is a collaborative site in the sense that several contributors have access to it. In addition to me, the most active are the long-standing Language Log contributors Arnold Zwicky and Ben Zimmer. The Eggcorn Database has a forum now, with its own space for your contributions and submissions. Feel free to register and join in.

-- Chris Waigl, 2006-06-20

hurtle » hurdle

Classification: English – /t/-flapping

Spotted in the wild:

  • We’ve got more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any point since the Pliocene, when there were jungles in northern Canada. And the number hurdles ever upward, as ocean levels rise and extreme weather becomes routine. (Nicholas Thompson, The New Yorker, May 12, 2013)
  • Our sun will eventually burn out and we’ll all hurdle to our intergalactic deaths. … One day you’re hurdling along, taking it all for granted, scratching for any edge you can get on this planet. Then you’re hurdling toward certain oblivion. (Neil Cavuto, Fox News transcript, Mar. 27, 2017)
  • “These things never come here,” gallerist Nina Johnson recalls telling the artist R. M. Fischer last Tuesday, as Hurricane Irma hurdled toward Miami, where he would mount his first show of Lampworks in more than two decades. (Architectural Digest, Sept. 22, 2017)
  • As the state hurdles towards the finish line for their ambitious project to wire the state with high speed broadband, local providers are making progress in connecting northern New York. (Sun Community News, Nov. 14, 2017)
  • Each character on the one-sheet gets their own prism as they hurdle towards Chris Pine’s Dr. Alex Murry. (Entertainment Weekly, Nov. 17, 2017)

Analyzed or reported by:


| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2017/11/29 |

knell » nail

Chiefly in:   death nail

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • Grasso said he thought Brexit would be the “death nail” for equities, but the market didn’t play out that way. (CNBC, Mar. 29, 2017)
  • Bernie Sanders’ single-payer plan is a ‘death nail’ for baby boomers. (Fox Business, Aug. 16, 2017)
  • DACA is the death nail for anti Trump GOP. (The Kevin Fox Show, Sep. 6, 2017)
  • Had the DNC mobilized voter registration across college campuses, it would have been a death nail to Hillary securing the nomination. (Ronda Lee, Huffington Post, Sep. 14, 2017)
  • Similarly, I believe that the digital revolution and the computer is going to unleash more aspects of e-government, which will be the death nail to politicians. (Patch.com, Sep. 18, 2017)
  • “I do not want any of you to view this as the death-nail for this idea,” Austin said. (Wichita State Sunflower, Oct. 25, 2017)

Analyzed or reported by:


| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2017/10/27 |

ad » at

Chiefly in:   at hominem , at infinitum , at nauseam

Classification: English – cross-language – /t/-flapping

Spotted in the wild:

  • You’re trying to compare to things that are not similar, and then when criticized for it you rely on at hominem retorts. (Hollywood Reporter comment, July 22, 2014)
  • How many times are you going to argue at hominem? (Malta Today comment, Sept. 4, 2016)
  • Rosemary Owens told the ABC that the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is starting to identify “unscrupulous employers” who use unpaid trials “at infinitum in relation to a whole range of people”. (HC Online, Oct. 2, 2015)
  • As can be seen in previous images, the square indicating the focus center when focusing a minimum distance is much closer to the center at infinitum in the 1.4 than it is in 2.0. (Digital Photography Review forum, July 5, 2016)
  • This incident (was) discussed at nauseam 20 years ago when it happened. (Doug Gottlieb Show, CBS Sports Radio, Feb. 22, 2016)
  • All throughout the preseason, we in the media talked at nauseam about the Dodgers lack of a true leadoff hitter. (SoCal Sports, NBC Los Angeles, Apr. 4, 2016)

Analyzed or reported by:

  • Leon Bambrick (Twitter, Sept. 30, 2016)

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2016/10/01 |

teem » team

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • The place is teaming with evil gangs of rat-faced charvers! (ChavTowns, Oct. 26, 2004)
  • The capital city of Heian is now teaming with evil spirits. (TruePcGaming, May 7, 2013)
  • The plane is relatively light, but chloride in the ocean as well as the life teaming there have worked on it over the 70 years since it last saw sunlight. (FoxNews.com, May 7, 2013)
  • Kabul market teams with activity as Ramadan nears. (AFP Video, Yahoo News, June 26, 2014)
  • I’m glad it’s okay with guests staying there … not teaming with evil spirits that want to chase people out. (Stephen King Revisited, Jan. 11, 2015)

Analyzed or reported by:


| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2016/01/03 |

team » teem

Chiefly in:   teem up with

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • [T]here was the riveting VH1 documentary “The Night James Brown Saved Boston,” and a great tribute concert at London’s Barbican, when a couple of his old band-members teemed up with a bunch of stellar African musicians. (Nick Hornby, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2008)
  • Tonight he teems up with the equally legendary New Orleans neighbors Preservation Hall Jazz Band for what will surely be a fine evenign of music. (Brooklyn Vegan, Nov. 1, 2014)
  • Uber in Chicago has teemed up with the Snickers candy brand to deliver on-demand free Halloween costumes — and a specially-branded Snickers bar of course — to local Halloween partygoers who have procrastinated about getting their costumes. (Chicago Business Journal, Oct. 30, 2015)

| Comments Off link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2016/01/03 |