Marathon has a very specific meaning. It is a footrace of 26.2 miles (named after a city in Greece). However, it is used these days to basically describe anything that’s lengthy (in terms of time).
A similar word is ‘litmus test’, which is used to describe any test that yields one of two results.
I’m looking for similar words, i.e. words that have very specific meanings, but are used to much wider degree.
Decimate: to kill one out of every ten people
Used to signify mass destruction.
Witch hunts rarely involve a pursuit of real witches these days.
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Enderw24 beat me to it.
Scapegoat: technically the biblical reference in Leviticus (KJV) regarding the goat on whom the sins of the people were placed, but more generally refers to any party unfairly blamed.
Guinea pig: a small animal, or generally used for a test subject.
Quantum jump: A transition from one state to another without passing through any intermediate state. But it’s usually used not only more widely, but incorrectly, for any very rapid change. Genuine quantum jumps can in fact be arbitrarily slow.
Literally… used to mean without exaggeration… now it seems to be used to denote some sort of emphasis…
“I literally walked five miles to school barefoot” has turned to “I literally died driving five miles to school in last year’s DC’s”
Impact means for one body to strike another, but is now (vastly over) used instead of effect or affect.
I don’t think that this one counts. I’m not asking about words that are often used incorrectly.
Fair enough… my mistake.
Laundry list, as in a “laundry list of charges” against a suspect.
Not even sure what an original laundry list was – did you list what you were sending to the laundry (6 shirts, 2 dresses)?
“Think outside the box.” Once those original people escaped, they had no idea how popular their phrase would become.
A bunch of brand names, like Band-Aid, Aspirin, Scotch Tape, Kleenex, Q-Tips . . .
Yes, because in the era when clothing and linens were expensive, the laundry list helped prevent the servants from stealing stuff*. Also, if you had guests, you wanted to make sure clothing got back to its rightful owners.
*Which they would sell or pawn.
While I agree that the figurative use of “literally” is a heinous error, the dark machinations of the cult of Descriptivism hold that this is a perfectly cromulent usage, and it’s not their problem if creates an intolerable ambiguity in everyday speech. (The editorial boards at American Heritage and M-W should literally die in a fire for their crimes.)
Onward:
A cliché is a block of commonly-used typesetting text used instead of individual letters.
I find the misuse of “literally” to be particularly heinous, because it makes it impossible to express certain ideas. Most other figurative uses, I don’t mind, because if it’s unclear, then you can just ask whether it’s meant literally or not. But once “literally” itself becomes used figuratively, this is no longer possible.
If it’s a gaping hole in the english lexicon then another word will be created or shanghaied to fill the void. I’ve never found it to be that difficult to determine if someone is using literally in the traditional sense or as a general intensifier, but that’s just me.
“Ton”. As in “that thing weighs a ton!”
Also often used to signify a change of great magnitude.
Shibboleth - originally referring to a regional dialect’s rendering of a word incorrectly (see Judges chapter 12), now refers to any signalling to prove insider status.