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Misnomer   Listen
verb
Misnomer  v. t.  To misname. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Misnomer" Quotes from Famous Books



... to the selfish use of power, whether consciously or unconsciously, by those possessing it, is the distribution of the power among all who are its subjects. Short of this the name free government is a misnomer. ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... place, then, I must premise that the name of Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the house and estate which bear that name, are situated on what a visiter would be at first inclined to call a dead level, but on what is in truth a small secondary undulation, or hollow, in the broad, flat valley through ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... of course this very word "dead" is an absurd misnomer, as most of the entities classified under this heading are as fully alive as we are ourselves; the term must be understood as meaning those who are for the time unattached to a physical body. They may be subdivided into nine principal ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... called the "king of the forest." This appears to be a misnomer. He is not properly a forest animal. He cannot climb trees, and therefore in the forest would less easily procure his food than in the open plain. The panther, the leopard, and the jaguar, are all tree-climbers. ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... win you with my smile. Most audiences are good-natured, and enjoy to the full such small vanities; moreover, we all like to see winning smiles, beautiful gowns, and graceful gestures; but it is a pitiable misnomer to call such exhibitions reading. But the more subtle forms of insincerity in this art are even more prevalent. To exaggerate some form of emphasis, to exaggerate a gesture or facial expression, to wrest a passage from ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... ford on their return trip; a sad misnomer now, for it was an unfordable ford. The water of old Elkwater was rearing and plunging, and furiously wild. Every mountain (and there are myriads) was sending out its wet aid to swell the raging torrent; the regiment, at this time, only three miles from the Secessionists. A bold ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... a misnomer for the extraordinary establishment, studio and domicile combined, at which we dismounted. It is not a hut, and neither in architectural motive nor the artistic proclivities of its inmates has it aught to do with the centuries when our English tongue was otherwise written ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... that of a river, which carries the stream of prices now on this side of the valley, now on that. But this fluctuation of general prices surely can be so greatly moderated in magnitude and in evil results as to make the word "crisis" almost a misnomer. It is toward the attainment of this irreducible minimum of uncertainty and disaster in business that efforts should ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... that Shakespeare shows much judgment in the naming of his plays. From this observation several critics have excepted Julius Caesar, pronouncing the title a misnomer, on the ground that Brutus, and not Caesar, is the hero of it. It is indeed true that Brutus is the hero, but the play is rightly named, for Caesar is not only the subject but also the governing power of it throughout. He is the ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... square yard of flower-bed in front. Many of the Niois villas are veritable palaces, and what adds to their sumptuousness is the indoor greenery, dwarf palms, india-rubber trees, and other handsome evergreens decorating corridor and landing-places. The English misnomer has, nevertheless, compensations in snug little kitchen and decent servant's bedroom. I looked over a handsome villa here, type, I imagine, of the rest. The servants' bedrooms were mere closets with openings on to a dark corridor, no windows, fireplace, cupboard, or any convenience. The ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... she has transformed some of the most degraded portions of London by her improved tenement houses for the poor. One place, called Nova Scotia gardens,—the term "gardens" was a misnomer,—she purchased, tore down the old rookeries where people slept and ate in filth and rags, and built tasteful homes for two hundred families, charging for them low and weekly rentals. Close by she built Columbia Market, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... that Lord Coke was the only Britisher who had ever killed a real grizzly in California. There are numerous bears of three if not four varieties in the Rocky Mountains, and these are frequently termed grizzlies, as a misnomer; but the true grizzly is far superior in size, although similar in habits, and his weight varies from ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... have dwelt on so long had they not greatly marred a real enjoyment in the reading, and were they not the ear-mark of a school which has become unhappily numerous, I turn to a consideration of his work as a whole. I think he made a mistake in his very plan, or else was guilty of a misnomer in his title. His book is not so much a life of Milton as a collection of materials out of which a careful reader may sift the main facts of the poet's biography. His passion for minute detail is only to be equalled by his diffuseness on points mainly if not altogether irrelevant. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... denomination; epithet, title, cognomen, surname, cognomination, pseudonym, patronymic, metronymic, alias, penname, praenomen, sobriquet, nom de plume, nom de guerre, nickname, eponym, misnomer, euphemism, agnomen, allonym, anonym, autonym, appellative, byname, caconym, cryptonym, compellation, compellative, dionym, trionym, polyonym, diminutive; repute, fame, renown, reputation. Associated Words: nominal, nominally, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... are called shore larks; but that is evidently a misnomer, or at least a very inapt name, for they are not in the least partial to the sea-shore or even the shores of lakes, but are more disposed to take up their residence in inland and comparatively dry regions. There are several varieties, all bearing a very close resemblance, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... to John P. Hale, an insubordinate Democrat from New Hampshire, for the same offense, and at the time screaming that the "blood of our glorious battle-fields in Mexico rested on the hands of the President"; Mr. Clingman challenging the House with the broad statement that "it is a misnomer to speak of our institution at the South as peculiar; ours is the general system of the world, and the free system is the peculiar one," and Mr. Palfrey dryly responding that slavery was natural just as ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... violence abate until the train reached the next station, where the conductor summoned reenforcements and invoked the majesty of the law in the form of an officer. The affray, from first to last, was most depressing and gave to the unwilling witness a feeling that civilization is something of a misnomer and that men are ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... for centuries as objects of respect and veneration. Some travelers have thought that 14,000 feet is above the tree line, but the presence of these trees at Santa Rosa would seem to show that the use of the words "tree line" is a misnomer in the Andes. Mr. Cook believes that the Peruvian plateau, with the exception of the coastal deserts, was once well covered with forests. When man first came into the Andes, everything except rocky ledges, snow fields, and glaciers was covered with ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... the men discovered that the term Divisional rest was a misnomer. Reveille was before six, and in the dim light of the early morning, the men had to wash and shave in icy cold water in the teeth of a bitter east wind. There followed a meagre breakfast cooked on an unsheltered field ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... of voice. In fact, in a certain register its vibration is felt so distinctly that we speak of these notes as being sung in the "chest register," which, so far as it implies that the tones are produced in the chest, is a misnomer. The same is true of "head register," in which vibration is felt in the head where, however, it is needless to say, the "head tones" do ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... in the works of a few earlier theorists, to prefer statute law to what is known as judge-made law, on that ground alone. The writer is not of the school that admits there is such a thing as judge-made law, but believes the phrase to be a misnomer, at least in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. The whole theory of the English law is that it exists in and by the people and is known of them before it is announced by a judge, and although the extreme of this theory be somewhat metaphysical, it is certainly true that a judge is a very bad judge ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to try and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs. Mompert's wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education in the highest sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. The bishop's views are of a more decidedly Low Church color than my own—he is a close friend of Lord Grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any means narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little dislike in his diocese ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... coagulated mass in which a spoon will stand upright—is manufactured from fresh-drawn milk, which is put into a pan, and stirred with a spoon two or three times a day, to prevent the cream from separating from the milk. The Scotch "sour cream" is a misnomer; for it is a material produced without cream. A small tub filled with skimmed milk is put into a larger one, containing hot water, and after remaining there all night, the thin milk (called wigg) is drawn off, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... meaning is probably the same as that of the ancient Greek when he attributed the wisdom of some mortal hero to whispered advice from Zeus or his messenger Hermes. Longfellow's famous poem is based upon Schoolcraft's book entitled The Hiawatha Legends, which is really a misnomer, for the book consists chiefly of Ojibwa stories about Manabozho, son of the West Wind. There was really no such legend of Hiawatha as that which the poet has immortalized. See Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, pp. ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... chapter "Japan's Financial Burdens and Resources," but I am not quite sure that the word "burdens" is not a misnomer. Japan appears to me—and I may claim to have studied the matter with some little attention—to have no financial burdens, if burdens be taken to mean something that is inconveniently felt, that is difficult to carry. There is here ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... defect which the plea points out. This plea, though it was recently, made use of by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland, is of very rare occurrence in ordinary practice—a recent statute having entirely superseded every advantage formerly to be derived from this plea, in cases of a misnomer, or a wrong name, and of a false addition or a wrong description of the defendant's rank and condition, which were the principal occasions on which it was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... Mr. R. thus speaks is indifferently called egg and tongue, egg and dart, as well as egg and arrow. It seems to me that the egg is a complete misnomer, although common to all the designations; and I fancy that the idea of what is so called was originally derived from the full-length shield, and therefore that the ornament should be named the shield and dart, an association more reasonable ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various

... told the story, but not quite. Had Hilmer climbed personally to upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle class" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now? Perhaps it was ... perhaps it always had been... But so was the foundation of any structure. Foundation?... The thought intrigued him, but only momentarily. Who wanted to bear the crushing weight of arrogant ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... which we are suffering gheblee, is a perfect misnomer; for the hot wind of to-day and yesterday came directly from the north, "Bahree!" As Yusuf said, however, when I told him where the wind was from: "Where now is the sea? It is a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... is as follows: The form is locked up very tightly, and is then coated with a surface of graphite, commonly known as blacklead, but it is a misnomer. This is put on with a brush, and may be done very evenly and speedily by a machine in which the brush is reciprocated over the type by hand-wheel, crank, and pitman. A soft brush and very finely powdered graphite ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... horizontalis has been given to the dwarf-cypress, but in my opinion it is not descriptive of the tree: a cypress of this species, if uninjured, will grow perfectly straight in the central stem for a height of twenty feet without spreading horizontally. It is probable that the misnomer has been bestowed in ignorance of the fact that an uninjured tree is seldom met with, and that nearly every cypress has been mutilated for the sake of the strong tough leader, which, with one branch attached, will form the one-fluked anchor required ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... Their notions on such subjects were generally crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave them ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... a Ceylon blunder and a misnomer. The animal thus called is a 'samber deer,' well known in India as the largest of all ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... revolving bookcase within reach of anyone sitting at the desk; not very interesting books: old Navy Lists, a "King's Regulations," a "Manual of Court Martial Procedure," one or two volumes on International Law, and a treatise on so-called 'modern' seamanship—which, by the way, is a misnomer, seamanship, like love, being of ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... to America's school children, is a misnomer. No evidence whatever has been given that the percentage of children suffering from physical defects in 1907 is greater than the percentage of children suffering from such defects in 1857. On the contrary, the small proportion of defects that are not easily removable, as well ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... boats proceeded down a river so sluggish that the term "down" seemed a misnomer, and we actually had to row; had to work at the oars to make the boats go; these same boats which so recently had behaved like wild horses. This was not to our taste at all, the weather being extremely hot. But there was no help for it. The boats fairly went to sleep and ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... [Footnote 28: The misnomer of ble de Turquie shows the popular error. Yet the rapidity of its diffusion through Europe and Asia, after the discovery of America, is of itself sufficient to show that it could not have been indigenous to the Old World, and have so long remained ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... composed "Morgan's Squadron," a popular misnomer by which, however, the command came, in a short time, to be regularly designated. Morgan's company became A, of this organization; Allen's, B; Bowles', C. The squadron remained quietly in camp, at Bowlinggreen, for ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... them? Let us consider. It is supposed by some scholars that we have in the New Testament as it now stands a work written by Apollos, viz., the Epistle to the Romans. Yet, if so, the error amounts only to a misnomer. On the other hand, there are Epistles on which has been charged the same error in relation to the name of the author, and the more important error of thoughts unbecoming to a Christian in authority: for instance, the Epistle of St. James. This charge ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... of using paddles," reflected Jack, "but it was a misnomer, for they have none, and they would not have pushed so far out from shore when they knew I expected to return so soon. All that proves that a party of devils have also a boat and are hunting for the one in which our new ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... the larger Socialist parties described in the foregoing, there are two smaller organisations composed of revolutionary Socialists of the most violent type, whose Socialism is a misnomer for Anarchism. They are "The Socialist Party of Great Britain" domiciled in London, and "The Socialist Labour Party" (an American importation), domiciled in Edinburgh. Their programmes, as those of the other Socialist organisations, will be found in ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... another rascal had but one under-garment between them, and entered into a compact that one should lie in bed while the other wore the article in question. Naturally enough the two fell out in time, and the end of Goodman—sad misnomer—was worse than his beginning: such was the gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland vouchsafed ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... division and violence, would be but to carry out the absurdity, of which the public are guilty, in holding abolitionists responsible for the mobs, which are got up against them. These mobs, by the way, are called "abolition mobs." A similar misnomer would pronounce the mob, that should tear down your house and shoot your wife, "Henry Clay's mob." Harriet Martineau, in stating the fact, that the mobs of 1834, in the city of New York, were set down to the wrong account, says, that the abolitionists ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... gale at sea, A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning, New characters; the episodes are three:[as] A panoramic view of Hell's in training, After the style of Virgil and of Homer, So that my name of Epic's no misnomer. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... this side of the world, alas and alack, the very name is a misnomer. Coffee-house: a place where people drink coffee. Not at all. You cannot obtain coffee in such a place for love or money. True, you may call for coffee, and you will have brought you something in a cup purporting to ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... a tree, an instinct rather than reason caused the artist to guard himself by throwing up his left arm. He caught the knife thrust in the fleshy part of it, and the pain was like the red-hot sting of a gigantic wasp. It flashed through his brain then that the term cold steel was a misnomer. The next moment his right hand had brought down the heavy knob of his stout stick on the curly head of the Italian, and Pietro fell like a log at his feet. Standish set his teeth, and as gently as possible drew the stiletto from his arm, ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... should first commit myself to the pedagogic methods of the Hochschule, which to a great extent, however, I discarded as my own views crystallized. I found that too much emphasis allotted the wrist stroke (a misnomer, by the way), was bound to result in too academic a style. By transferring primary importance to the control of the full arm-stroke—with the hand-stroke incidentally completing the control—I felt that I was better able to reflect the larger interpretative ideals which my ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... declares. She hated mathematics in any form and spent all her time on natural science, language, and literature. "Friday afternoon," writes Mrs. Porter, "was always taken up with an exercise called 'rhetoricals,' a misnomer as a rule, but let that pass. Each week pupils of one of the four years furnished entertainment for the assembled high school and faculty. Our subjects were always assigned, and we cordially disliked them. This particular day I was to have a paper ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... explanations given by Epicurus and Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and compare them with the numerous attacks made upon it by opponents, we cannot but remark that the title or formula of the theory was ill chosen, and was really a misnomer. What Epicurus meant by Pleasure was, not what most people meant by it, but something very different—a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body; much the same as what Democritus had expressed before him by the phrase [Greek: euthymia]. This last phrase would have expressed ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... undertook to drive him from Boston, putting his life in peril, it was our women who made their own persons a bulwark of protection around him. And shall such women be refused seats here in a Convention seeking the emancipation of slaves throughout the world? What a misnomer to call this a World's Convention of Abolitionists, when some of the oldest and most thorough-going Abolitionists in the world are denied the right to be represented in it by ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... contamination of a large town.'[36] It may have surprised such people, but it does not surprise us who are surveying the industrial scene and beginning to apprehend the rottenness of that worm-eaten structure which under the misnomer of domestic industry marks the half-way ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... Lutheranism advocated during the middle of the nineteenth century as "American Lutheranism" was a misnomer, for in reality it was neither American nor Lutheran, but a sectarian corruption ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... we were still off the ruddy cliffs which line the shore. A person first seeing this part of the coast would consider that Albion was a misnomer for England, as no walls of white chalk are to be seen rising from the blue ocean. As far as the eye can reach, various tints ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... writings is the Essay, "THE DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM," containing much valuable criticism on Wallace and Weismann. It is in allusion to the misnomer of Wallace's book, "Darwinism," that he introduces the term "Wallaceism" {0d} for a theory of descent that excludes the transmission of acquired characters. This was, indeed, the chief factor that led Charles Darwin to invent his hypothesis ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... fancy ourselves in the happy valley of "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," and it seemed to me impossible that any one could ever desire, like that discontented youth, to leave so charming a spot. The term prairie is a misnomer in this case; instead we found a beautiful fruitful valley lying between two low ranges of hills, interspersed with groves of trees and picturesque lakes, and watered by a river winding gracefully through its whole length. It had been the seat of the Winnebago Agency, ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... Smithers had mutually agreed that, on the receipt of their quarter's salary, they would jointly and in company 'spend the evening'—an evident misnomer—the spending applying, as everybody knows, not to the evening itself but to all the money the individual may chance to be possessed of, on the occasion to which reference is made; and they had likewise agreed that, on the evening aforesaid, they would 'make a night of it'—an ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... Jersey village, or rather city (for it had won municipal government some years before, in spite of the protest of far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts out of proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer. Often a person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and being driven by way of entertainment about the rural streets, would ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... of caloric is mobile, and is capable of moving from one portion of matter to another; yet under certain conditions a portion of caloric is occluded in the matter by the force of attraction. That portion of caloric which is occluded (known by the misnomer, latent heat) I shall call static caloric, and that portion which is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... parents and children, princes and subjects, men and women, where there is a difference in the character of the affection of the two parties. A certain degree of inequality—though we cannot lay down the limitation—makes "friendship" a misnomer. One would not desire the actual apotheosis of a friend, because that would take him out of reach; it would end friendship. Friendship lies rather in the active loving than in being loved, though most people are more anxious to be loved than ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... a hostile human environment produced not degeneration but development. This came about partly by reason of the peculiarities of the country, and partly through the methods of war. The term war is rather a misnomer in this connection, as it does not express the idea. The result was not brought about by armed bodies of men animated by hostile intentions or bent on extermination, although forays of this kind are too common in later pueblo ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... secret, are manifest and common in other objects, but will never be clearly seen if the experiments and conclusions of men be directed to themselves alone': for it is a part of this doctrine, that man is not omitted in the order of nature—that the term HUMAN NATURE is not a misnomer. The doctrine of this Play is, that those same powers which are at work in man's life, are at work without it also; that they are powers which belong, in their highest form, to the nature of things in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... great, oak-panelled bedroom, till, about dawn, his legs gave way beneath him; and think, think, think, till his mind recoiled, confused and helpless, from the dead wall of its objects. And, out of all this walking and thinking, there emerged, after an hour of stupor, that it would be a misnomer to call sleep, two fixed results. The first of these was that he hated his father as a lost soul must hate its torturing demon, blindly, madly, impotently hated him; and the second, that he could no longer delay taking his wife into ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... must be content to give a tame account of the siege of Kimberley, for the thing itself was tame. Indeed 'siege' is a misnomer, for it was rather an investment or a blockade. Such as it was, however, the inhabitants became very restless under it, and though there were never any prospects of surrender the utmost impatience began ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... say of Giri what Scott wrote of patriotism, that "as it is the fairest, so it is often the most suspicious, mask of other feelings." Carried beyond or below Right Reason, Giri became a monstrous misnomer. It harbored under its wings every sort of sophistry and hypocrisy. It might easily—have been turned into a nest of cowardice, if Bushido had not a ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... Socialist state must be democratic. Socialism without democracy is as impossible as a shadow without light. The word "Socialism" applied to schemes of paternalism, and to government ownership when the vital principle of democracy is lacking, is a misnomer. As with ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... light waggon on the 9th of July, at half-past five o'clock, a.m., having been detained for horses, and rolled along very much at my ease, compared to what the travelling on this route was seven years ago—I was going to say, on this road, but it would have been a misnomer, for there was nothing but a miry, muddy, track then: now, there is a fine, but too narrow, macadamized highway, turnpiked—that is to say, having real ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... that can be suggested for teas, but the following seems to demand as little home labor for satisfactory results as any other. The word tea, by the way, is something of a misnomer, as at these entertainments the beverages are almost invariably coffee or chocolate, or both, tea being left ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... vulgarity. jargon, technical terms, technicality, lingo, slang, cant, argot; St. Gile's Greek, thieves' Latin, peddler's French, flash tongue, Billingsgate, Wall Street slang. pseudology^. pseudonym &c (misnomer) 565; Mr. So-and-so; wha d'ye call 'em^, whatchacallim, what's his name; thingummy^, thingumbob; je ne sais quoi [Fr.]. neologist^, coiner of words. V. coin words, coin a term; backform; Americanize, Anglicize. Adj. neologic^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... of good feelings" applied to the Administration of President Monroe is a misnomer. It is descriptive neither of politics nor of business and industry, for the historic Democratic party was all but rent by bitter personal animosities, and the country was prostrated by a ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... "anti-Semitism" here in the sense in which it has come to be used—that is to say, anti-Jewry, but place it in inverted commas because it is in reality a misnomer coined by the Jews in order to create a false impression. The word anti-Semite literally signifies a person who adopts a hostile attitude towards all the descendants of Shem—the Arabs, and the entire twelve tribes of Israel. To apply ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... Malabar Whistling-Thrush (rather a misnomer, by the way) breeds on the slopes of the Nilghiris, never ascending higher than 6000 feet. The nest is always placed on some rock in a mountain torrent; it is a coarse and, for the size of the bird, a very large structure, and though I have never measured ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... one in all their number who could pay down the money that Simone could pay down; and as to argument, Griffo of the Dragon-flag was too busy a man to bother about other people's arguments. Yet Griffo left the Company of Death a misnomer, as far as he was concerned. Griffo had let the Reds ride onward to Arezzo and back to Florence, very much to Simone's annoyance and discomfiture. What, then, was the cause of Griffo's defalcation, and who had inspired him to this signal piece ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... tendency of male offspring to die early is seen even before birth, for more male children are still-born than female,—namely, as three to two. For this reason, the term 'the stronger sex,' applied to men, has been regarded by some authors as a misnomer. They are physically weaker in early life, and succumb more readily to ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... were not there. We discovered that someone had come in here since our last visit, and built a house. It proved to be John D. Lee, of Mountain Meadow Massacre notoriety, who had established a home here for one of his two remaining wives. He called the place Lonely Dell, and it was not a misnomer. It is now known as Lee's Ferry. Mrs. Lee proved to be an agreeable woman, and she and her husband treated us very kindly, inviting us, as we had nothing but bread and coffee, to share their table, an offer we gladly accepted. Here Johnson ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... this contest called by its promoters an "Air Derby"? In our opinion, with rules allowing the use of other modes of travel as well as aircraft, the title is a decided misnomer. It should have been termed a "Go-As-You-Please Derby." Not a single one of these contestants accomplished the girdle by airplane alone; every winner took a steamship across the Pacific. Here's hoping that when another 'round-the-world contest is pulled ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... are some who would tell us that the very name is a misnomer. Have we not been assured by the German critics and their English disciples that there were no patriarchs and no Patriarchal Age? And yet, the critics notwithstanding, the Patriarchal Age has actually existed. While ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... muttered to myself, I know not how often. "It isn't worth while to look for it when there are new birds to be found. Still, it's singular," I continued, "that the house wren should dwell in such secluded places. It would seem that his name is a misnomer—at least, in a good many instances." Several times I stopped to listen more intently to the rolling ditty. "There's something odd about that wren's song," I repeated. "Does the house wren always close its ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... of the period, 'Mucedorus' and 'Faire Em,' have also been assigned to Shakespeare on slighter provocation. In Charles II.'s library they were bound together in a volume labelled 'Shakespeare, Vol. I.,' and bold speculators have occasionally sought to justify the misnomer. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... interested me was that known as the "Ministry of Public Enlightenment," its head being Count Delyanoff. He was certainly a man of culture; but the title of his department was a misnomer, for its duty was clearly to prevent enlightenment in the public at large. The Russian theory is, evidently, that a certain small number should be educated up to a certain point for the discharge of their special duties; but that, beyond this, anything ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... days dragged along until the pursuing and long visible disaster finally overtook the company in Centropolis, Illinois (this is not the real name of the city, but it is no more flagrant a misnomer than the one it boasts). They played a matinee here and an evening performance, to two almost empty houses; that gave ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... geologic ages, and should thus have used the phrase as the title of his book. Had he called his work the "Variability of Species," or the "Modification of Species," it would not have been such a misnomer. Sudden mutations give us new varieties, but not new species. In fact, of the origin of species we know absolutely nothing, no more than we do about the origin ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... is a misnomer, as Darwin himself perceived. It means merely survival. "Selection" proper involves intention, and belongs to human reason. Selection by man we call artificial. Natural selection is the outcome of certain ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... often denounced by its opponents as British free trade; but we respectfully suggest that if its operations lead to so serious a destruction of British interests as is now alleged, the phrase is at least a misnomer. No! as the characteristics of the crisis are common to the United States, England, and France, so the causes of that crisis are to be sought in something which is also common to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... the medicinal virtues of these foods, or however appropriate the term "condimental" which has been applied to them, it is quite certain that their whilom designation "concentrated" was a misnomer. Their composition shows that they possess a degree of nutritive power considerably below that of linseed-cake, and but little, if at all, superior ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... fibrous plants, and abaca forms in its prepared state one of the most important exports of the islands. This is a sort of plantain from which comes the Manila hemp, as it is sometimes called, though it is a misnomer; and with us it is called simply manila, the sailors tell me. It is extensively cultivated here, and grows something ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... of the work is clearly a misnomer, as well as a mistranslation, for it contains nothing of the terrors of the Last Judgment, but, on the other hand, is graceful and elegant in style. The affixing of this title to it is said to have been the work of Professor Taylor, who arranged it for the Norwich festival ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... six people, her two-weeks-old baby kicking and screaming in champagne-basket cradle. "The sublime martyrdom of maternity". Left alone immediately after infant's birth. Husband dangerously ill, and cannot help. A kindly miner. Three other women at the Bar. The "Indiana girl". "Girl" a misnomer. "A gigantic piece of humanity". "Dainty" habits and herculean feats. A log-cabin family. Pretty and interesting children. "The Miners' Home". Its petite landlady tends bar. "Splendid material ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... as used by the great majority of the people is a misnomer. With the exception of a theoretically valuable but practically unimportant right called "freedom of contract," the majority of the wage earners in the United States have no more excuse for using the phrase "our ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... such an extraordinary misnomer as overproduction, should be applied to a situation that would better be described as famine; why a condition should be said to result from glut when it was obviously the consequence of enforced abstinence? Surely, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... The answer to both these questions is contained in the reply that it is read from the akashic records; but that statement in return will require a certain amount of explanation for many readers. The word is in truth somewhat of a misnomer, for though the records are undoubtedly read from the akasha, or matter of the mental plane, yet it is not to it that they really belong. Still worse is the alternative title, "records of the astral light," which has sometimes been employed, ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... two-thirds of the Lower were French Canadians. A French-Canadian member was nominated for the speakership and elected unanimously. Both races were for the most part represented by members whose official title of 'Honourable Gentlemen' was not at all a misnomer. The French members of the Assembly were half distrustful both of it and of themselves. But they knew how to add grace and dignity to a very notable occasion. The old Bishop's Palace served as the Houses of Parliament and so continued for many years to come. It was a solid rather than a stately pile. ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... actions are possible—and close on the heels of this question would follow the old, "Is logic the essence of thinking?"—in other words, "Is thinking possible without arbitrary signs? or how far is the word arbitrary a misnomer? are not words, etc., parts and germinations of the plant, and what is the law of their growth?" In something of this order I would endeavour to destroy the old antithesis of Words and Things, elevating, as it were, Words into Things, and living things too. All the nonsense ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... interested in girls. The fact is, I had occasion to talk with a young man yesterday who took the people to task most roundly for that very name, on the ground that they had no right to it—that it was a misnomer. I have been struck with the thought that nothing is trivial, not even the name that happens to be chosen for a house where one waits for his dinner," with a strong emphasis on the word "wait," which Eurie understood and ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... of Melbourne, passing to the east of the Benevolent Asylum, we went over a little rise called Mount Pleasant, which, on a damp sort of a day, with the rain beating around one, seemed certainly a misnomer. After about two miles, we came to a branch-road leading to Pentridge, where the Government convict establishment is situated. This we left on our right, and through a line of country thickly wooded (consisting of red and white gum, stringy ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... be sure, with the office of Criticism and the art of Fiction, and so far their present name is not a misnomer. It follows them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... authority biassed in our favor I will give Sir Edward Codrington's opinion of our rural better class (i, 318). "It is curious to observe the animosity which prevails here among what is called the better order of people, which I think is more a misnomer here than in any other country I have ever been. Their whig and tory are democrat and federalist, and it would seem for the sake of giving vent to that bitterness of hatred which marks the Yankee character, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... see that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. The letter from The Forge was the first ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake, ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle, and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... of Prize, the provision that each party to a case shall have a representative on the bench should be changed so as to provide that neither party shall have a representative on the bench. If this court is not to be a misnomer like the Permanent Court of Arbitration, its rulings must be in accord with the principles of jurisprudence rather than with the spirit of compromise such a provision would tend to produce. With this accomplished and the Judicial Court of Arbitration put in practical working order "of free and ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... go to Mahagi, which is on the border between the Congo and Uganda. This is the only overland gap in the whole route. It covers roughly,—and the name is no misnomer I am told,—680 miles through the jungle and skirts the principal Congo gold fields. A road has been built and motor cars are available. The railway route from Stanleyville to Mahagi, which will link the ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... was placed before the judges, and was called upon to plead, he admitted that he was the person indicted, but pleaded a misnomer in abatement—or, in other words, that he was the Earl of Banbury. The pleas occupied, subsequently, more than a year, during which time the prisoner was admitted to bail. At last the House of Lords interfered, and called ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... discontent of the seething underside of the American system Socialism is a misnomer. Were there no Socialism there would be just as much of this discontent, just the same insurgent force and desire for violence, taking some other title and far more destructive methods. This discontent is a part of the same planless confusion that gives on the other side the wanton irresponsible ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... most positive beautifier, the best cosmetic. The term "beauty sleep" is no misnomer. Sleep freshens the complexion, smoothes out wrinkles, clears out the brain, strengthens the muscles, puts light into the eyes ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... who threw mists before your eyes—you had no time to detect his fallacies. He would say "hand me the silver sugar tongs;" and, before you could discover it was a single spoon, and that plated, he would disturb and captivate your imagination by a misnomer of "the urn" for a tea kettle; or by calling a homely bench a sofa. Rich men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you from it; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply assuming that everything was handsome about him, you ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to see some nuns' cells. They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas. The word "cells" was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned rooms of a cheerful Japanese house. The fragile, wistful nun who was so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression. Her dress was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination of green and cream. Her ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... misnomer in our case. Our sojourn here was prolonged for more than a month by a slight attack of typhoid fever, which this time seized Sachtleben, and again the kind nursing of the missionary ladies hastened recovery. Our mail, in the mean time, having been ordered to Teheran, we were granted the privilege ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... days of hard work in getting the big white-lipped peccaries—white-lipped being rather a misnomer, as the entire under jaw and lower cheek are white. They were said to be found on the other side of, and some distance back from, the river. Colonel Rondon had sent out one of our attendants, an old follower of his, a full-blood Parecis Indian, to look for tracks. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... Rationalist is a term of contempt, and means not one who is really reasonable, but would like to pass for such." Of course the Doctor concludes that the word is a most flagrant and unrighteous misnomer; but we accept his philology and return him our thanks for ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... irresistible influences of the day. It was the balmy blossoming time. The whole atmosphere was rich with sweet scents and sounds, while the sky had that marvellous depth and tone which makes the name of heaven seem no misnomer. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... absolutely negative the idea of any effect being produced on the constant of aberration by the amount of refracting medium traversed by the light.—The great Aurora of 1872 Feb. 4 was well observed. On this occasion the term Borealis would have been a misnomer, for the phenomenon began in the South and was most conspicuous in the South. Three times in the evening it exhibited that umbrella-like appearance which has been called (perhaps inaccurately) a corona. I have very carefully compared its momentary phenomena with ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... most ponderous of the ruminating inhabitants of the western wilderness. The name of buffalo, however, is not correct. The animal is the bison, and bears no resemblance whatever to the buffalo proper; but as the hunters of the far west, and, indeed, travellers generally, have adopted the misnomer, we bow to the authority of custom and adopt ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup. Abel was a concession to his mother's qualms. It was his father's name, and by her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should Eloquent prove a misnomer. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... minor), published in October, 1840; and Op. 54 (in E major), published in December, 1843. "How is 'gravity' to clothe itself, if 'jest' goes about in dark veils?" exclaims Schumann. No doubt, scherzo, if we consider the original meaning of the word, is a misnomer. But are not Beethoven's scherzos, too, misnamed? To a certain extent they are. But if Beethoven's scherzos often lack frolicsomeness, they are endowed with humour, whereas Chopin's have neither the one nor the other. Were it not that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... prevailing during the 16th and 17th centuries, to obtain complete families of instruments to play in concert. The invention of the basset horn in 1770 is attributed to a clarinet maker of Passau, named Horn, whose name was given to the instrument;[2] by a misnomer, the basset horn became known in Italy as corno di bassetto, and in France as cor de basset. In 1782, Theodore Lotz of Pressburg made some modifications in the instrument, which was further improved by two instrumentalists of Vienna, Anton and Johann ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... why the devil they call me Kelly," he mused. "No episode that I ever heard of is responsible for that Milesian misnomer. Quand meme! It sounds prettier from you than it ever did before. I'd rather hear you call me Kelly than Caruso sing my ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... void, and then they disappear. There is not, consequently, any very distinct progression or continuity observable among them, and so far therefore one has to confess that the title 'School of Miletus' is a misnomer. We have already quoted the words of Aristotle in which he classes the Ionic philosophers together, as all of them giving a material aspect of some kind to the originative principle of the universe (see above, P. 4). But while this is a characteristic observable ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... this island are so well preserved that it is almost a misnomer to call them ruins. The little island is only five hundred yards long and sixty yards wide, and contains the Temple of Isis, Temple of Hathor, a kiosk or pavilion, two colonnades, and a small Nilometer. In the gateway to one of the temples ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes

... atrocities of 1876. Not a drop of blood was shed; and Major von Huhn, who soon arrived at Philippopolis, found Greeks and Turks living contentedly under the new government. The word "revolution" is in such cases a misnomer. South Bulgaria merely returned to its natural state[196]. But nothing will convince diplomatists that events can happen without the pulling of wires by themselves or their rivals. In this instance they found that Prince ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... country, who constitute the Missouri Synod. It is historically unjust to apply the term private confession to that public confession of sins, made by the congregation collectively, as part of our preparatory exercises on sacramental occasions, and usually a misnomer to apply the name private confession, to the habit of some of our German ministers, (termed Anmeldung,) of having all communicants call on them for conversation on their spiritual state, prior to sacramental communion. Although these customs both grew ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... they feed into our minds without our knowing? Perhaps those disks are only window dressing, and they can work without them. A great deal will depend upon the impression we can make on these witches." He began to smile again, more wryly. "The name we gave this planet is certainly a misnomer. A warlock is a male sorcerer, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... re-arranged form the series of illustrated papers on American history contributed by Mr. Higginson to Harper's Magazine during the past two years. If such is the author's purpose, then we have no fault to find with the work. But the term "Larger History" is, in this case, a misnomer. The book does not contain as much matter as the earlier work to which we have alluded, and it is not, so far as we can make out, written for older readers. It does not strike one as being a history at all,—that is, a straightforward, logical, and continuous narrative ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... anteroom, and enter this queer museum. We pause in sheer bewilderment on the threshold, and despair of classifying its contents intelligibly within any moderate space. This much, indeed, is obvious at first sight—that the title 'vulgar errors' is to some extent a misnomer. It is not given to vulgar brains to go wrong by such complex methods. There are errors which require more learning and ingenuity than are necessary for discovering truths; and it is in those queer freaks of philosophical minds that Sir Thomas specially delights. Though far, indeed, from objecting ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... conceivable that does not destroy the doctrine which it professes to interpret—that does not convert it into its own negative? As if a geometrician should name a sugar- loaf an ellipse, adding—"By which term I here mean a cone;"—and then justify the misnomer on the pretext that the ellipse is among the conic sections! And yet—notwithstanding the repugnancy of the doctrine, in its unqualified sense, to Scripture, Reason, and Common Sense theoretically, while to all ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... those dainties which we call oysters had always been remarkable. It occurred to Bruin, as he had now some trifling capital, that he would invest a portion in such articles as made up the fixtures and stock-in-trade of an oyster-merchant: the former expression is, however, a misnomer, for the stall and tubs included under the term fixtures would be more properly described as moveables. This was soon effected; and Bruin having chosen a semi-respectable thoroughfare, where he would have a chance of a customer or two from the upper, and would not be too far removed from the ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes

... old days before the halt at Penrith; but rode, a silent, thoughtful figure, so self-contained and of so godly a mien as would have rejoiced the heart of the sourest Puritan. The wild tantivy boy had vanished, and the sobriquet of "Tavern Knight" was fast becoming a misnomer. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... now began to shorten sail, and the ship drew into that arm of the sea which, by a misnomer peculiarly American, it is the fashion to call the East River. Here our heroine candidly expressed her disappointment, the town seeming mean and insignificant. The Battery, of which she remembered a little, and had heard ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... reference given in the whole book. In the second place, the genetic point of view is almost completely overlooked, one of cardinal importance in such a field. Thirdly, the whole subject of the unconscious is treated as non-existent. It is a complete misnomer to entitle a book on descriptive psychology "The Foundations of Character" when no notice whatever is taken of that region of the mind where the very springs of character take their source, and where the most fundamental features of character are to be found. Last, but not least, is the absence ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... of the Dissenters in England and Wales in single school areas under the Education Act of 1902. Ireland may not unjustly be said to be a single university area, for to call an examining Board a university is a misnomer. It is surely not too much to assert that the conscientious scruples of the Irish Catholics to forms of education of which they do not approve are as strong as the feelings of the Non-conformist conscience. The attempt to force undenominationalism on ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... is her own. Miss NORREYS is very good but the girl is insipid. Miss COMPTON, as the good-hearted, knowing, fast lady, wins us, as she proves herself to be the real Robin Goodfellow, the real good fairy of the piece, Robin Goodfellow is a misnomer, unless the aforesaid Robin be dissociated from Puck: but it is altogether a bad title as applied to this piece for, as with Mr. CARTON's piece at the St. James's, Liberty Hall, it is a title absolutely thrown away. Mr. FORBES ROBERTSON is as good as the part permits, and it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... Park Land to Wapping, by day and by night, I've many a year been a roamer, And find that no Lawyer can London indite, Each street, every Lane's a misnomer. I find Broad Street, St. Giles, a poor narrow nook, Battle Bridge is unconscious of slaughter, Duke's Place can not muster the ghost of a Duke, And Brook Street is wanting ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... we need not speak in detail to any who have ever seen its delicate moss-covered buds, and inhaled their delightful odor. They are perfectly hardy, and can be wintered without any protection. They are called perpetual, but this is a misnomer, for we know but one variety of Moss Rose that approaches it, that is the Salet Moss. The rest are no more so than are the so-called ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... 52. A Misnomer.—Essentially Americanism signifies liberty of thought, speech, press, and assemblage, based on democracy and national independence, religious freedom and equality being its most precious gem. Lutheranism, therefore, standing, as it does, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... description, the same ability to identify and portray types. Meantime, the author has greatly enlarged her range of experience and knowledge of the world. A true cosmopolite, London, Paris, and Calcutta have become familiar to her, as well as New York and Montreal. The title of her new book is no misnomer, and the author's vigorous treatment of her theme has given us a book distinguished not only by acute study of character, command of local color, and dramatic force, but also by ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... ready to hurl them at the invading hosts, and protect their lives and cattle until all danger was past. Those who are skilled at the art can still make the Blowing Stone sound. The name, King Alfred's Bugle-horn, is a misnomer, and arose from the association of the White Horse Hill with the battle which Alfred fought against the Danes at Aescendune, which may, or may not, have taken place near the old British camp at Uffington. There are several White Horses cut out in the turf on the hillsides in ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... us, in seventy years more, 16,000,000 slaves. It will be seen that this process is not emancipation, but merely transposition, or change of locality. The very name of emancipation, thus applied, is a misnomer. ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... the actual conditions? First, the name "rural libraries" I found a misnomer. It in no sense represents facts. The words imply community interests, interests alike of adult and child, whilst the reality is that these libraries are simply school deposits, composed wholly of "juvenile books," graded up to but not beyond the seventh grade. When one realizes ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... is composed of well-nigh all nations and of all religions, who are distinguished for nothing so much as for jealousy and hatred of each other. As to the crowds of pilgrims who annually visit the Holy City,—a gross misnomer, by the way, as it now is,—they are certainly no very hopeful subjects of missionary effort; drawn thither, as they are, chiefly by the spirit of superstition; and during the brief time they remain ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... their publication. They were written merely for popular effect, to be spoken before a miscellaneous audience, in which any abstract topics of moral philosophy would be the last to awaken an interest. The title of the book is accordingly a misnomer. It would lead no one to suspect the rich and diversified character of its contents. They present no ambitious attempts at metaphysical disquisition. They are free from dry technicalities of ethical speculation. They have no specimens ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... that the mill girls liked the bright-colored and expensive wares, and why; she learned that the woman with the "fascinator" (tragic misnomer!) over her head wanted the finest sled for her boy. She learned to keep her temper. She learned to suggest without seeming to suggest. She learned to do surprisingly well all those things that her mother did so surprisingly well—surprisingly because both the women secretly ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... eyes the works of those much-abused monks, who in general are so frequently defamed by the thoughtless boys who write for the secular press, and by the equally empty-headed old women—of both sexes—who write for that class of periodical which by a curious misnomer is designated religious. These are the people, who, it is to be feared, shut their eyes to the truth, lest they should ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... “medicine” in all of the tribes in some sense is a misnomer;[49] it really signifies dreamer, or prophet, and is synonymous with the word “prophet” in the Old Testament. The Indian form of government may be characterized as a theocracy, and the medicine-man is the high priest. His dreams ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... life; and mind, intellect, soul, personality, the ego, are mere functions of the physico-chemical process of life, vanishing when this process ceases, but are not a part of the transformations of matter and of energy. If you thus speak of "mental energy," it scientifically is a misnomer, and mind is not energy in the physical sense. It is true that mental effort, intellectual work, is accompanied by transformations of matter, chemical changes in the brain, and by transformations of energy. But the mental activity is not a part of the energy ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... Doctor Opimian, dining with his friend Squire Gryll; 'a curiously complicated misnomer. We have an excellent old vegetable, the artichoke, of which we eat the head; we have another of subsequent introduction, of which we eat the root, and which we also call artichoke, because it resembles the first in flavour, although, me judice, a very inferior affair. This last is ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... else is the same.' But that is just what cannot be. A new factor has been introduced, it may be a whim, a sudden impulse, perhaps even a desire to upset calculation—a something in his character in virtue of which his second choice is different from his first. It is an utter misnomer to call it 'chance.' Even though he had tossed a coin and acted on the throw, his action would still be determined by the kind ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... many of its branches text-books have not kept pace with the knowledge of its leading minds. Such is confessedly the case in the department of Medical Jurisprudence. This very term, Medical Jurisprudence, as now used in colleges, is generally acknowledged to be a misnomer. There is no reason why it should be so used. The leading medical writers and practitioners are sound at present on the moral principles that ought to direct the conduct of physicians. It is high time that their principles be more generally and distinctly inculcated on ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... significantly remarked on the effect produced by the "deliberate exclusion" of any instruction in Irish history from National schools. It does seem curious that national history should be a forbidden subject in National schools, and this fact makes the appellation of "National" seem rather a misnomer. The result of this deliberate exclusion was graphically described by the honorable member. The youth comes forth educated, and at a most impressible age he reads for the first time the history of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... authors' or writers' clubs. In London and in other capitals so many of these have been established, and continue to flourish, that they obviously perform certain useful and welcome functions; but my own criticism would be that to call them clubs for "authors" or "writers" is a misnomer which fails to particularize the real basis of membership. In the modern world, no doubt, all writers, merely as writers, have certain interests in common. They have, in the first place, to get their works published, and the business of publication is a very complex process, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... birthday was passed, Star's education commenced. The process called "gentling," was a complete misnomer for the series of buck jumps, of bites and kicks, with which the young lady received the slightest attempt to touch her. She had a horrible habit also of shrieking, really almost like a human being in a frantic rage; ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... the close of the period—though their births were separated by only twenty years—corresponds to the difference between the temper of the generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great Queen. ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which that fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he was convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory, the mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new friend made some extraordinary confessions. "Do you not see," he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... behavior, that most of the remarks which have been made about that wild being apply to her also. In many cases, indeed, we find that one version of a story will allot to a Baba Yaga the part which in another version is played by a Witch. The name which she bears—that of Vyed'ma—is a misnomer; it properly belongs either to the "wise woman," or prophetess, of old times, or to her modern representative, the woman to whom Russian superstition attributes the faculties and functions ascribed in olden days by most of our jurisprudents, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... until the illusion is shattered in quite another fashion. There is an excellent eighteen-hole golf course in Barrackpore park, but when you hear people talking of the second "brown" there can be no doubt but that you are in Asia. A "green" would be a palpable misnomer for the parched grass of an Indian dry season, still a "brown" comes as a shock at first. The gardens merit their reputation. There are innumerable ponds, or "tanks," of lotus and water-lilies of every hue: scarlet, crimson, white, and pure sky-blue, the latter an importation ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... crag, the summit of which is crowned by what he naturally mistakes for masonry; but which, on a more minute inspection, he discovers to be, for the most part, the rock itself. There stands what is now described as the Einsiedlerstein,—that is, the stony dwelling of the hermit; a grievous misnomer surely,—for though the last occupant of that dwelling was doubtless a recluse, its original purpose, which for many ages it served, was that of a strong-hold, or castle. And perhaps nowhere, even in Germany, can a more perfect specimen be pointed out of the sort of ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... as great a misnomer as the tea," Sam put in, ponderously struggling out of his linen driving coat. "It's bridge night, and the only hops are ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... attack remained the ideal—if such a word is not a misnomer in such a case—of the British Navy, not merely as a matter of irreflective professional acceptance, but laid down in the official "Fighting Instructions." It cannot be said that these err on the side of lucidity; but ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... it!" insisted my guardian. Dunny has the biggest heart in the world, with a cayenne layer over it, and this layer is always thickest when I am bound for distant parts. "I mean every word of it, I tell you, Dev." Dev, like Dunny, is a misnomer; my name is Devereux—Devereux Bayne. "Don't you risk your bones enough with the confounded games you play? What's the use of hunting shells and shrapnel like a hero in a movie reel? We're not in this war yet, though we soon will be, praise ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... passed the critical crisis and taken its place as one of the most remarkable series of letters which the public have ever been invited to peruse. Something of the marvellous vanishes from them, however, when we find that the title, "Correspondence with a Child," is a misnomer; Bettina having been, in truth, twenty-two years of age when she first visited Goethe. Yet while this important circumstance abates much of the wonder with which we once read her thoughts and confessions, they really become all the more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... opening, we may call the ab-oral region. I prefer these more general terms, because, if we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... even to Lawless himself that the visit could not be protracted longer, and we accordingly rose and took our leave, our host (I will not call him entertainer, for it would be a complete misnomer) preserving the same tone of cool and imperturbable politeness to the very last. On reaching the hall we encountered the surly old footman, whose features looked more than ever as if they had been carved out of some ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... that Christian school; and the word Philosophy, on the authority of Gibbon, who, however excellent an authority for facts, knew nothing about Philosophy, and cared less, has been used exclusively to express heathen thought; a misnomer which in Alexandria would have astonished Plotinus or Hypatia as much as it would Clement or Origen. I do not say that there is, or ought to be, a Christian Metaphysic. I am speaking, as you know, merely as a historian, dealing with ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley

... daubs, called portraits, of eminent personages, one-half of whom a stranger never heard of—but that is national vanity; and lastly, I do not recollect to have seen a museum that had not a considerable portion of its space occupied by most execrable wax-work, in which the sleeping beauty (a sad misnomer) generally figures very conspicuously. In some, they have models of celebrated criminals in the act of committing a murder, with the very hatchet or the very knife: or such trophies as the bonnet worn by Mrs — when she was killed by her ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... serious evil known as "Trench Feet" first made its appearance in the Army in France. The cases were at first labelled "Frost Bite," but as they were subsequently found to occur without any fall of the temperature to freezing point, this term was evidently a misnomer. Indeed, cases have occurred during ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... expresses the suggestive potency in music, the operatic form incarnates its capacity of definite thought, and the expression of that thought. The term "lyric," as applied to the genuine operatic conception, is a misnomer. Under the accepted operatic form, however, it has relative truth, as the main musical purpose of opera seems, hitherto, to have been less to furnish expression for exalted emotions and thoughts, or exquisite sentiments, than to grant ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris



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