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misname

American  
[mis-naym] / mɪsˈneɪm /

verb (used with object)

  • misnames,
    present (3rd person singular)
  • misnamed,
    past participle,  past
  • misnaming
    present participle
  1. to name incorrectly or wrongly; miscall.


Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future


Etymology

Origin of misname

First recorded in 1475–85; mis- 1 + name


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

And your mother-in-law’s sensitivity does not entitle her to misname you.

From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2022

"Sweet tormentor, not until you cease so to misname me."

From The Black Moth A Romance of the XVIIIth Century by Georgette Heyer

V. misname, miscall, misterm†; nickname; assume a name.

From Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Peter Mark Roget

"If you call it heartache, you will not misname it," said Catharine, with a sigh, and proceeded to speak in a very serious tone.

From The Fair Maid of Perth Or, St. Valentine's Day by Sir Walter Scott

I had hoped, from the name, or rather misname, of the conveyance, to gladden my eyes with the sight of something civilized.

From A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53 by Ellen Clacy

So to repeat: Vance misnames Alex Padilla during a press conference.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025

With authority and certitude, she misplaces geographical landmarks, mispronounces French words, and misnames the heroes of history.

From Time Magazine Archive

He misnames the qualities of persons or things, and gives bad appellations or epithets to good or indifferent qualities.

From Talkers With Illustrations by John Bate

Signor Pessina, however, had provided him with the address of a society which operated something that the doctor agrees to term Kabbalah, after the same manner that he misnames most subjects.

From Devil-Worship in France or The Question of Lucifer by Arthur Edward Waite

This my swashbuckler misnames sentimentality—and thus I feel that he always tends to admire the wrong qualities, because he condones even what he calls sentimentality in one whom he chooses to admire.

From The Silent Isle by Arthur Christopher Benson

Cardi B, who also wore a towering black turban, misnamed her designer Monday in an interview with Vogue.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2024

Warnings contained contradictory information and sometimes misnamed districts.

From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2024

There is the misnamed Norway rat — also called the brown, sewer or wharf rat — actually a native from northern China or Mongolia.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 13, 2023

Correction: An earlier version of the story misnamed the Utah Division of Water Rights.

From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2022

It seems fair to conclude that what we call “Washington’s Farewell Address” is not misnamed.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

When Alamillo saw the clip of Vance misnaming Padilla, he immediately thought of Ricardo “Pancho” Gonzalez.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025

In the latter category, Jamieson included misnaming individuals and bragging about crowd sizes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2024

The usage infantilizes both the reader and the book’s subject, adding to a centuries-long history of disrespectful misnaming — a history that White himself contested by entitling his autobiography “A Man Called White.”

From New York Times ● Feb. 8, 2022

I think we have a habit of misnaming political experiences in ways that help us metabolize loss.

From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2020

The second great family of the herbivorous Diprotodont Marsupials is typically represented by the creatures properly known as phalangers, which the colonists of Australia persist in misnaming opossums.

From Austral English A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia by Edward Ellis Morris

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