Miscategorise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To assign something or someone to an incorrect group, class, or classification when it belongs somewhere else
2. Putting an item, person, or idea into the wrong kind of group so that its true nature is misrepresented
3. Wrongly classifying a thing under a label or heading that does not accurately describe it

Etymology: "Miscategorise" is a simple compound: the prefix "mis-", meaning wrongly or amiss, joined to "categorise". The prefix is an old English element, from Old English "mis-" and related to the idea of going astray, so the whole word means to place something in the wrong category. The stem does the real work. "Category" comes via Late Latin "catēgoria" from Ancient Greek "katēgoria", a word for an accusation or predication, built from "katēgorein", to accuse or speak against someone in public. Aristotle used the term for the basic classes into which things can be sorted, and that philosophical sense carried into English as "category" through French, where the word has been recorded since the Middle Ages. "Categorise" was formed in English from "category" with the verb ending "-ise", borrowed through French from Late Latin "-izare". Adding "mis-" to this established verb produced "miscategorise", which follows the familiar pattern of "mis-" with verbs such as "misclassify" and "misidentify".

Synonyms: miscategorize, misclassify, misfile