misnomer

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A term which is misleading, even if firmly established, technically correct, or both.

   The name Chinese checkers is a misnomer since the game has nothing to do with China.

2. 2
   noun

   Something which is asserted not to be true; a mistaken belief, a falsehood, a myth.

   It’s a misnomer that all doctors have bad handwriting.

Simplified etymology

Misnomer entered English in the late Middle English period and belongs to the family derived from Latin nomen “name,” ultimately from the same Indo-European source as English name.

The noun is derived from Late Middle English misnoumer (“(law) mistaken identification of a person; plea based on such misidentification”), from Anglo-Norman mesnomer, a noun use of Anglo-Norman mesnomer, mesnommer, and Old French mesnomer, mesnommer (“to name incorrectly”), from mes- (prefix meaning ‘badly, wrongly’) + nomer, nommer (“to name”) (from Latin nōmināre, the present active infinitive of nōminō (“to name”), from nōmen (“name”) (from Proto-Indo-European *h₁nómn̥ (“name”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)). The verb is derived from the noun.

Topics

External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary