Capitonym illustration: a large turkey and a map of the country Turkey shows how adding a capital changes the meaning

Capitonym

A capitonym is a word that changes meaning and sometimes pronunciation when capitalised.

You'll be familiar with many examples:

turkey/Turkey
may/May
march/March
august/August
lent/Lent
reading/Reading
mobile/Mobile
polish/Polish
alpine/Alpine
china/China

For years as a kid, no joke, I couldn’t understand why there was a polish club at the bottom of our road. Yes, it was a Polish club.

Capitonyms are also heteronyms when they change pronunciation as for polish and Polish.

Also see acronym or initialism

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