the.com/misnomer
A name that lied to you and nobody bothered to fix it.
means A name or label that is factually wrong or misleading, even though everyone keeps using it out of habit.
from From Anglo-French 'mesnomer,' built from 'mes-' (wrongly, badly — the same prefix lurking in 'mistake' and 'mischief') plus 'nomer,' from Latin 'nominare,' to name. So it's quite literally a 'wrong-naming,' first used in English legal contexts for paperwork that named the wrong person or thing — a lawyer's word for a clerical oops that has since wandered into everyday use for any label that just doesn't fit.
- peanut
- a legume, not a nut
- koala bear
- not a bear, a marsupial
- root word
- from latin for wrongly named
- funny bone
- it is a nerve, not a bone