misnomer

English

WOTD – 3 August 2025

Etymology

The noun is derived from Late Middle English misnoumer (“(law) mistaken identification of a person; plea based on such misidentification”),[1] 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,[2] 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.[3]

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /(ˌ)mɪsˈnəʊmə/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˌmɪsˈnoʊməɹ/
  • Audio (General American):(file)
    (file)
  • Rhymes: -əʊmə(ɹ)
  • Hyphenation: mis‧nom‧er

Noun

misnomer (plural misnomers)

Examples
  • chickenpox: it has nothing to do with chickens, and is not a pox (that is, caused by a poxvirus).
  • crabeater seal: it eats krill, not crabs.
  • fisher (Mustelid, Pekania pennanti): it does not eat fish.
  • Greenland and Iceland: Iceland is much greener, and less icy, than Greenland.
  • prairie dog: it is a squirrel, so not closely related to dogs.
  1. (law) A mistake in the naming of a person or place; a misidentification.
  2. (by extension)
    2. An incorrect use of a term, especially one which is misleading; a misname.
      • 2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
        Rewilding […] is also a misnomer, for whether by getting rid of tens of thousands of sheep in Patagonia or introducing a living species as a surrogate for an extinct one – Sayaguesa cattle in place of aurochs in Croatia’s Velebit Mountains, for instance – rewilding requires more human intervention than its name suggests.
      • 1994, Illinois. Appellate Court, Stephen Davis Porter, Illinois Appellate reports, page 257:
        […] plaintiff's misstyling himself as corporation in initial complaint constituted case of misnomer.
    3. 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.
      Antonym: aptronym
    4. (nonstandard, proscribed) 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.

Derived terms

Translations

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Translations to be checked

See also

Verb

misnomer (third-person singular simple present misnomers, present participle misnomering, simple past and past participle misnomered)

  1. (transitive) To use an incorrect, and especially misleading, name for (someone or something); to misidentify, to misname.
    Synonym: (rare) misnome

Translations

References

  1. ^ “misnoumer, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “misnomer, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2024; “misnomer, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “misnomer, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.

Further reading

Anagrams

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