n. The process by which a phonological change begins by applying only to certain words and then spreads gradually to other phonologically similar words. In some cases, lexical diffusion stops at some point, leaving all remaining words permanently...

Hypothesis according to which sound change takes place in a few words and then spreads successively (through quasi-analogous generalizations) to all words concerned. This view, propounded by dialect geography against the concept of sound change of the...

In historical linguistics, lexical diffusion is both a phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is that by which a phoneme is modified in a subset of the lexicon, and spreads gradually to other lexical items. For example, in English, /uː/ has changed to...