Skunked term

 ( Lexicology ) 

Some terms, such as "", may become skunked, and then eventually revert to their original meaning over time.

• Humbled originally meant "brought low" but is often used to mean "honored".
• "It's all downhill from here" originally meant to become easier but is widely used to mean becoming worse or more difficult.
• A moot point in British English has historically meant a point that is worth debating, but the meaning is shifting towards that in US English of a point that is irrelevant or academic.
• A "steep learning curve" was used in psychology from the 1920s to describe the quick and easy acquisition of skill; it was adopted more widely in the 1970s with the opposite meaning, describing a difficult and arduous process.

• Niggardly means "miserly" or "parsimonious", but is rarely used in modern English because it is easily confused with the slur nigger, despite their separate etymologies.
• originally referred to anything associated with the east or orient, including the Middle East, and including people. More recently, the term has come to refer to East Asia exclusively, and use of the word to describe people has become offensive.
• The words faggot and Fagging have various meanings in British English (such as a faggot being a meat dish or a bundle of sticks, and a fag being a cigarette), but in the United States they are homophobic slurs.

• Cum is a Latin word used in English to mean "with" ( summa cum laude) or "along with being" ( he was a farmer-cum-poet), but in informal contexts it is increasingly associated with semen and related meanings.
  Bryan A. Garner (2025). 9780197599020, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197599020
• Ejaculate means to "exclaim", but it is now more commonly used to refer to the emission of semen in orgasm.
  Bryan A. Garner (2025). 9780197599020, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780197599020
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• "Begging the question" originally refers to the informal fallacy of assuming the conclusion, but is used to mean "evading the question" or "raising the question".
  Houghton Mifflin Company (2025). 9780618604999, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618604999
• Biweekly has come to mean either "occurring every two weeks" or "occurring twice a week". The same ambiguity exists for the word bimonthly.
• Data and have come to ambiguously describe both singular and plural entities, with the singular forms datum and medium declining in use.
• Disinterested is widely used to mean "uninterested" whereas the primary meaning is "unbiased".
• Drugs can mean both pharmaceutical medicines and illegal recreational psychoactive substances like cocaine or heroin.
  (2025). 9781441999016 ISBN 9781441999016
• Enormity used to mean "horror" but has come to mean "great size", likely due to confusion with the word "enormous".
• "The exception that proves the rule" originally meant that an exception stipulated in a rule establishes the existence of the rule outside the exception, but is generally used to mean an anomaly to a trend, while some argue that it should mean a case that tests the validity of a rule.
• Gay's former meaning of "cheerful and carefree" has largely been lost due to its more recent meaning of "Homosexuality".
• Hopefully used to mean "in a hopeful manner" but has come to mean "it is hoped" since the early 1960s.
• Inflammable means "prone to catching fire", but is sometimes interpreted to mean "not flammable" due to the fact that the English prefix in- usually suggests "not". Due to potential dangers of the word confusion, inflammable has seen a decrease in usage in the last decades, while the word nonflammable is used instead to mean "not flammable".
• "The turn of the n-th century" is ambiguous as to which century is ending and which is beginning. For example, "the turn of the 17th century" may refer to the period around the year 1601 (the beginning of the 17th century) or around the year 1700 (the end).
• is widely used with metaphorical language for emphasis.
• The original meaning of a third world was a country allied to neither of the global powers after the Second World War. This excluded most of South America, but included prosperous countries like Switzerland or Sweden. Because of the stereotype of a third-world country being poor, corrupt and undeveloped, most people started to use it to refer to the Global South or sarcastically to refer to their own (unfavored) government. With the Cold War ending, the original meaning has been mostly lost.

• Contronym
• , some of which may become skunked terms