Misnomer

A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied.^[1] Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name no longer suitably applies, or in an attempt to falsely blame or embarrass like in the misnomer case of Spanish flu. A misnomer may also be simply a word that someone uses incorrectly or misleadingly.^[2] The word "misnomer" does not mean "misunderstanding" or "popular misconception",^[2] and a number of misnomers remain in common usage — which is to say that a word being a misnomer does not necessarily make usage of the word incorrect.

An older name being retained after the thing named has changed (e.g., , mince meat pie, steamroller, tin foil, clothes iron, digital darkroom). This is essentially a metaphorical extension with the older item standing for anything filling its role.

tin can

Transference of a well-known product brand name into a (e.g., Xerox for photocopy, Kleenex for tissues, or Jell-O for gelatin dessert).

genericized trademark

, or a name applied to something that covers only part of a region. People often use Holland to mean the Netherlands, while it only designates a part of that country.

Pars pro toto

Referring to the suburbs of a with the name of the biggest city in the metropolis.

metropolis

A name being based on a similarity in a particular aspect (e.g., "shooting stars" look like falling stars but are actually ).

meteors

A difference between popular and technical meanings of a term. For example, a "bear" (see below) superficially looks and acts like a bear, but is quite distinct and unrelated. Similarly, fireflies fly like flies, and ladybugs look and act like bugs. Botanically, peanuts are not nuts, even though they look and taste somewhat like nuts. The technical sense is often cited as the "correct" sense, but this is a matter of context.

koala

Ambiguity (e.g., a is generally a road with park-like landscaping, not a place to park). Such a term may confuse those unfamiliar with the language, dialect and/or word.

parkway

Association of a thing with a place other than one might assume. For example, originate from Ecuador, but came to be associated with the building of the Panama Canal.

Panama hats

Naming particular to the originator's world view.

An unfamiliar name (generally foreign) or technical term being re-analyzed as something more familiar (see ).

folk etymology

or terms from different time periods that are juxtaposed, creating a chronological inconsistency.

Anachronisms

Some of the sources of misnomers are:

The "lead" in is made of graphite and clay, not lead; graphite was originally believed to be lead ore, but this is now known not to be the case. The graphite and clay mix is known as plumbago, meaning "lead ore" in Latin.

pencils

are frequently not black, but also green, red, blue, or brown.

Blackboards

Sticks of chalk are no longer made of , but of gypsum.

chalk

is almost always made of aluminium, whereas "tin cans" made for the storage of food products are made from steel with a thin tin plating. In both cases, tin was the original metal.

Tin foil

Telephone numbers are usually referred to as being "dialed" although are now rare.

rotary phones

In , the clubs commonly referred to as woods are usually made of metal. The club heads for "woods" were formerly made predominantly of wood.

golf

Oxymoron

Metonymy

The dictionary definition of misnomer at Wiktionary