category mistake

British  

noun

1. philosophy logic a sentence that says of something in one category what can only intelligibly be said of something in another, as when speaking of the mind located in space

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Example Sentences

However, it is a category mistake to attribute sentience to anything that can use language.

From Slate

A lazy, secondhand phrase will sometimes turn up in quotation marks, but always flagged as a moral error, a sign of bad faith or bad taste, a category mistake.

From New York Times

If the world beyond sport has begun to feel like some horrendous category mistake, a collapse into powerlessness, 30 years of structural change compacted across six months of confusion, then football is as ever in the lead, running on ahead of the tideline.

From The Guardian

To describe Paul as haunted would be less an understatement than a category mistake.

From New York Times

It is surely a category mistake to assume success is the natural level here, that some gleaming new era is just an elite appointment away.

From The Guardian