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.

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