Is there a word or phrase for the feeling you get after looking at a word for too long?


Sometimes after looking at a word for a while, I become convinced that it can't possibly be spelled correctly. Even after looking it up, sounding it out, and realizing that there's simply no other way to spell the word, it still looks wrong.


Is there a shorthand way to describe this feeling so that people will know what I mean without the long explanation?



Answer



Eureka! Ok, so it's not a single word, but it's what I was trying to think of:


Semantic Satiation:



Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.



I also found a languagehat discussion on this topic.


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