APA Dictionary of Psychology

a mnemonic technique sometimes used in learning foreign-language vocabulary. If the native language is English, the key word would consist of an English word associated with the sound of a foreign word and linked to the foreign word’s meaning in a mental image. For example, the French word livre (“book”) may remind an English speaker of the sound of leaf; the key word leaf can then be connected to book in a mental image, such as visualizing a leaf in a book as a bookmark.