Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

cacography

/kaˈkɒɡɹəfi/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English

Syllables: cacog-ra-phy
IPA: /kaˈkɒɡɹəfi/

23

Scrabble Score

10

Letters

3

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Bad spelling or punctuation, especially unintuitive spellings considered as a feature of a whole language or dialect.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

Deliberate comic misspelling; malapropism.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

Poor or illegible handwriting.

Countable; Uncountable

Example Sentences

"A phrase exhibits proofs of cacography, when the accents are misplaced, forgotten, or used erroneously."
"In 1997, two American entrepreneurs, Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay, formed a company called Typo.net to try to profit from Web surfers' cacography."
"The soul of dialect is cacography, the deliberate misspelling of words for comic effect, which is the written equivalent of the malapropism."
"Many illegible letters is the sign of disorder, and the illegibility of Greeley's cacography has furnished numberless anecdotes."
"Germans write a "1" so it's easy to confuse it with a "7": mathematics and cacography can leave Margret and I not speaking to each other for a week."
"I don't even recognize the handwriting – kind of a scrawled, almost illegible cacography with the letters slanting haphazardly in all directions."

Etymology

From caco- + -graphy, perhaps after Middle French cacographie.

Regional Pronunciation

British English: /kaˈkɒɡɹəfi/

Usage

Inflected Forms

cacographies (plural) kakography (alternative)

Derived Forms

cacographer cacographic cacographical

Frequently Paired Words

illegible indecipherable indistinct obscure scrawled unclear undecipherable unreadable

Synonyms

scribble scratch scrawl

Antonyms

orthography calligraphy

Rhymes With

photography geography biography bibliography pornography autobiography choreography topography cinematography discography tomography typography

Questions

How do you pronounce cacography?: The recorded pronunciation is /kaˈkɒɡɹəfi/.
What does cacography mean?: Bad spelling or punctuation, especially unintuitive spellings considered as a feature of a whole language or dialect.
Where does cacography come from?: From caco- + -graphy, perhaps after Middle French cacographie.

How to pronounce cacography

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “cacography”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/kaˈkɒɡɹəfi/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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Repeat and practice — Say “cacography” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.