misnomer.
A mistake in the naming of a person or place; a misidentification.
Meaning & usage
A mistake in the naming of a person or place; a misidentification.
An incorrect use of a term, especially one which is misleading; a misname.
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.
The word blackboard as applied to green or brown chalkboards is a misnomer but is not incorrect, as the broad sense of the word is idiomatic.
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
To use an incorrect, and especially misleading, name for (someone or something); to misidentify, to misname.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.