Miscallen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Given an incorrect name or label, so that the title used for someone or something does not fit
2. Named wrongly, with a designation that misdescribes the person or thing it is applied to
3. Referred to by a mistaken title, an archaic form describing a name that was applied in error

Etymology: Its most surprising piece is the verb underneath it. "Call" did not come into English from Old English "ceallian", which meant something closer to "to cry out". Its everyday sense of summoning or naming most likely arrived from Old Norse "kalla" during the Middle English period, when Norse speakers settled in northern and eastern England. The native English word for that sense faded, and the Norse word took over. Attaching "mis-", meaning "wrongly", produces a verb meaning to give someone a wrong name, or, more often in older texts, to abuse someone with insulting names. The ending "-en" is the Middle English form of the past participle, or of the infinitive in some dialects. Modern English has dropped it, so the form now looks archaic and appears mainly in older literature and dialect writing.

Synonyms: misname, mislabel, misdesignate