otosisn.
/əʊˈtəʊsɪs/, U.S. /oʊˈtoʊsəs/ rare.
Mishearing; alteration of words caused by an erroneous apprehension of the sound.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > disregard for truth, falsehood > inaccuracy, inexactness > incorrectness of language > [noun] > incorrect speech > as result of mishearing
otosis1860
1860 S. S. Haldeman Analyt. Orthogr. xii. 65 Otosis is a change in words, due to misconception of the true sound, influencing consonants of the same quality.
1884 J. A. Harrison Negro-Eng. Introd., in Anglia Negro English is an ear-language altogether,..built up on what the late Professor Haldeman of Pennsylvania called otosis, an error of ear, a mishearing.
1896 Science 31 July 135/2 His name is a Slavonic word rendered into a German equivalent by that process of popular language which some linguists call ‘otosis’.
1999 Re: jokes—OT in alt.smokers (Usenet newsgroup) 7 Dec. They found that a great deal of collateral loans were ‘eewees’ (they were cacoepists, suffering from otosis)... They were overhead by the janitor, who knew the word for an adult female sheep (‘ewe’) when he heard it.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1860