misname

American

[mis-neym] / mɪsˈneɪm /

verb (used with object)

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:

misname misnames misnamed misnaming

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

From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2022

Thus, not only our bread and our boots are made by machinery, but many of the very things we misname "art-products."

From The Evolution of Modern Capitalism A Study of Machine Production by J. A. (John Atkinson) Hobson

Millish veg-veen I called him, and, though a man of small cheer, I smiled to think what a sorry misname that name would seem in our harder English tongue.

From The Deemster by Sir Hall Caine

He saw behind it nothing save an implacable selfishness that chose to misname itself affection.

From An Ambitious Woman A Novel by Edgar Fawcett

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is my new name for the human species, which currently has the scientific name of Homo sapiens sapiens, or wise, wise man, which makes us the most misnamed species on the planet.

From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2023

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

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

Other California Democrats rallied behind Padilla after the misnaming incident.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2025

This sort of misnaming goes back at least as far as the Romans, who expanded their empire through a process they called “pacification.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2022

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

I would like to make note of the curious misnaming of wild animals in North America.

From Ranching, Sport and Travel by Thomas Carson

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023