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/ˈbækˌspɛlɪŋ/ · noun
An unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it..
Modern English numb is a back-spelling, because this word never had a /b/ in it. The back-spelling is based on words such as lamb, which had once ended in /b/, but where this sound was lost and the letter b became silent.
For example, in D and w, e is a possible reflex for OE y: (29) cysan, presumably a back-spelling for cesen < ceosen, and (40) hylle, a back-spelling for helle.
Another very important type is hypercorrect or inverse spelling (Rückschreibung, backspelling). Here a segment that has been lost or altered is spelled in the 'wrong' environment, suggesting that the writer knows that some words have it by convention, but not precisely which.
The absence of the epenthetic consonant in ⲖⲈⲬⲞⲨⲬⲞⲨⲘⲈⲢⲈ lekhukhumere seems to reflect a phenomenon of backspelling.
Use back-spelling when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Back-spelling means An unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it..
Common synonyms include inverse spelling.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
Modern English numb is a back-spelling, because this word never had a /b/ in it. The back-spelling is based on words such as lamb, which had once ended in /b/, but where this sound was lost and the letter b became silent.
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