"Misnomer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was like old times—old times that had been gone weeks only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with incident, adventure and excitement, that they seemed almost like years. There was no lack of cheerfulness on board the Quaker City. For once, her title was a misnomer. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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, costing over a million dollars, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... called the attempt to do what we are told to do. The word is a misnomer; with our Captain as our Leader no hope is ever "forlorn"! But our Leader calls for men, men like the brave of old who jeopardised their lives unto the death in the high places of the field, in the day that they came to the help of the Lord, to ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... accept—has volunteered to accept—for the name and rank of a separate nation, some trivial right of holding county meetings for local purposes of bridges, roads, turnpike gates. This privilege he calls by the name of "federalism;" a misnomer, it is true; but, were it the right name, names cannot change realities. These local committees could not possibly take rank above the Quarter Sessions; nor could they find much business to do which is not already done, and better done, by that respectable judicial body. True ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... electrotyping 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 are used; the superfluous powder being removed, and the face of the type cleaned ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... with a square yard of flower-bed in front. Many of the Nicois 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 ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... pleaded by the defendant. It did not involve the merits of the cause, but left the right of action subsisting. In criminal proceedings a plea in abatement was at one time a common practice in answer to an indictment, and was set up for the purpose of defeating the indictment as framed, by alleging misnomer or other misdescription of the defendant. Its effect for this purpose was nullified by the Criminal Law Act 1826, which required the court to amend according to the truth, and the Criminal Procedure Act 1851, which rendered description of the defendant ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the four who habitually sat with us was Giojoso, the seneschal, a lantern-jawed fellow with black, beetling brows, about whom the only joyous thing was his misnomer of a name. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... 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 to ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... forth later on, it may be confidently asserted that never before have the Mahomedans of India as a whole identified their interests and their aspirations so closely as at the present day with the consolidation and permanence of British rule. It is almost a misnomer to speak of Indian unrest. Hindu unrest would be a far more accurate term, connoting with far greater precision the forces underlying it, though to use it without reservation would be to do a grave injustice ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... 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
... Butler's biological 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 ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... cream—a 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, and the remainder of the contents of the smaller ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... 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, which has necessarily ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... to-day the grievance 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 ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... 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 bark, cherry and other trees), we arrived at Flemington, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... oral 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 the mouth, though there is not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the misnomer, American blight—is very destructive across the water, but does not exist extensively on this side. It is supposed to exist, in this country, only where it has been introduced with imported trees. It appears ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... 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 ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... up. He could not look at the sea any more. The name "House of the Sirens" suddenly seemed to him a terrible misnomer, now that he thought of Maddalena perhaps weeping by ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... A name given by the Spaniards to the "Great Ocean," from the fine weather they experienced on the coast of Peru. Other parts, however, prove this a misnomer. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... others, filling her shattered body with patent nostrums, yet throughout her long course of futilities and absurdities making a desperate attempt to shade the battered lamp of liberty from the fatal draught. Her name was the United States of America, and never was there a more satiric misnomer. If the States chose to obey the requisitions of the Congress, they obeyed them; but as a rule they did not. There was no power in the land to enforce obedience; and they hated each other. As the Congress had demonstrated ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... (Mr. Thorneycroft's) son, in order that the hated name of Allerton, to which the boy was alone legally entitled, might never offend his ear. There was something added insinuative of a doubt of the legality of the marriage, in consequence of the misnomer of the ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... framed—Hilmer looked down upon him. That almost 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 ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... might be well to explain that the word "plane" applied to flying machines of modern construction is in reality a misnomer. Plane indicates a flat, level surface. As most successful flying machines have curved supporting surfaces it is clearly wrong to speak of "planes," or "aeroplanes." Usage, however, has made the terms convenient and, as they are generally accepted and understood by the public, they are used in like ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... whom the world delights to honour; it bows before the successful charlatan, and cringes to his ill-gotten wealth. I'm told that such a man is received, yes, and welcomed by society. Society! The word is a misnomer. In my time a man of that class was kept at arm's-length, was relegated to his proper place—the back hall; but now"—he gazed angrily at the paper—"here is a whole column describing Sir Stephen Orme's new 'palatial villa,' and giving ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... introduction of an informal and healthful and inexpensive way of entertaining is a grand desideratum no one can fail to observe and allow. But with the growth of an idea the tea blossomed into a supper, and the little knot into a crowd, and of course the name became a misnomer. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... 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
... symphony best 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 vocal virtuoso opportunity to display phenomenal ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... one, left him enthroned fast, The blind old man of Scio, hoary Homer, So that of all the harpers first and last, To call him king, is not a base misnomer. ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... to this paper would be a misnomer, if I did not add a list of books which it may be ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... 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 ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... bursting with all that had happened since Tibbie's visit, the departure of the squire for Burlington immediately the meal was ended, and the desire of Tabitha's father and aunt to have news of Mrs. Meredith and of the doings "up Brunswick way," filled in the whole afternoon till tea time—if the misnomer can be used, for, unlike the table at Greenwood, tea was a tabooed article in the Drinker home. One fact worth noting about the meal was that Janice asked if any of them ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... both ships upon the MAY-FLOWER, for the belated ocean passage. The wholly negative results of careful search render it altogether probable that the original journal or "Log" of the MAY-FLOWER (a misnomer lately applied by the British press, and unhappily continued in that of the United States, to the recovered original manuscript of Bradford's "History of Plimoth Plantation "), if such journal ever existed, is now ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... 'cook' is at present rather a misnomer, for whilst we have a permanent galley no cooking need be ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... 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, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... 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 ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... '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
... large river at the north end of Weymouth Bay. At half-past ten A.M., passed Piper's Islands, and steered for Young Island; could not make it out for some time, when we did see it, found it only a small reef above water, not worthy the name of an island; such a misnomer is likely to mislead; hauled up for the reef M. At noon, abreast of Haggerstone Island, steered to give Sir Everard Home's Isles a berth; saw natives on Cape Grenville; hauled in for Sunday Island; the wind light from the eastward; ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... 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 an almost exclusive claim ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sight. Everything comes to him who knows how to wait. We waited, and Mr. JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD brought Niagara to Westminster. We waited again, and Mr. ARTHUR VOKINS brings Cornwall to Baker Street, and introduces us to a very clever young sea-scapist, Mr. A. WARNE-BROWNE—altogether a misnomer, for he isn't a worn brown at all, he is as fresh and bright and sharp as a newly-minted sovereign. Go and look at his "Lizard and Stags"—he isn't an animal-painter, though the title looks like it—his "Breaking Weather," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... sensation, though it never does, might very well be conceived to exist, without any thing whatever to excite it. We can conceive it as arising spontaneously in the mind. But if it so arose, we should have no name to denote it which would not be a misnomer. In the case of our sensations of hearing we are better provided; we have the word Sound, and a whole vocabulary of words to denote the various kinds of sounds. For as we are often conscious of these sensations ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... make the great Preacher Himself responsible for the 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 were told, that "they had no business to scare ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 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 ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... when after the coveted cream; that larger pussy, the tiger, steals lightly towards the ambushed hunter who is to furnish him the next delicious meal; and "Tarquin's ravishing strides" are undoubtedly a misnomer, for the Roman must have been something more or less than man if he did not tip-toe his sandals or cast them off altogether, when he stole towards the midnight ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... to the power of the Supreme Court in our scheme of government, Jefferson said "It is a misnomer to call a government republican, in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation." Works, Vol. ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... 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 Stadler, and finally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... but unaware of the existence of 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 facts; and ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... 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 practical uses it is intractable, unmalleable, and altogether unprofitable—notwithstanding ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... great love for 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 ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... 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, for these records lie far beyond the astral plane, and ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... was unknown) said, laughing, to a friend within his hearing, "Do you know that there is somebody come down from London to read us a paper on making steel from cast iron without fuel? Did you ever hear of such nonsense?" The title of the paper was perhaps a misnomer, but the correctness of the principles on which the pig iron was converted into malleable iron, as explained by the inventor, was generally recognised, and there seemed every reason to anticipate that the process would before long come ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the first 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 ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... 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 we tugged away at their dull, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... Lenormant's careful description of the chief pride of Poseidonia, we shall confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible concerning the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a misnomer of which the veriest amateur must at once perceive the absurdity, is inferior both in size and in beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune. Its chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view will be at once remarked, for it has its two ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... 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, ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... censorship was a new and irksome one to the great American people and just what it meant was hard to determine. Much has been written about "Press Censorship." That term was a misnomer. There never was an attempt to censor the great American press. The newspapers were just as free to print as they were before the war started. All the censorship that existed was over the telegraph ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... then, clear that no specific aesthetic pleasure need be sought. The very phrase, indeed, is a misnomer, since all pleasure is qualitatively the same, and differentiated only by the specific activities which it accompanies. It is also to be noted that those writers on aesthetics who have dwelt most on aesthetic pleasure ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... 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
... of 1871 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) ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... together with its imprudent fondness for political allusions, has more than once all but occasioned its suppression. Both journals are published weekly, and both have a considerable circulation, though it must be owned that their title of "comic" is for the most part a sad misnomer. That the Russians are naturally devoid of humor no reader of Gogol or Griboiedoff, Pushkin, Kriloff or Tourgueneff, can believe; but the comic journals themselves have fallen far too much into the hands ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... the wind under 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 long way ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Yarrow braes, know of ballad strains well-nigh as sweet as those of the neighbour water. But cheerfulness rather than sadness is their prevailing note. Auld Maitland, the lay which James Hogg's mother repeated to Scott, has its scene on Leader side, and at the 'darksome town'—a misnomer in these days—of Lauder. Long before the time of that tough champion, St. Cuthbert and True Thomas had wandered and dreamed and sang by Leader. It was a Lord Lauderdale who rode to Traquair to court, after the ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... there was one woman conspicuous among the rest. By her companions she was called Fatima. The old sailor, ignorant of Arabic feminine names, thought "it a misnomer," for of all his she-persecutors she was the leanest and scraggiest. Notwithstanding the poetical notions which the readers of Oriental romance might associate with her name, there was not much poetry about the personage who so assiduously assaulted Sailor ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... 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 to be ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... gentleman telling me (in illustration of the very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, Sir John Linkwater, or Drinkwater,—but I think the jolly old knight could hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,—while sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to the clerk. "Mr. Clerk," said Sir John, as if it were the most indifferent fact in the world, "I was drunk last night. There ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... 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
... was, in some respects, a correct designation but in others a misnomer. It had rooms to let, or rather suites, and it had a clerk. So far, a hostelry. It had no dining room, no bar, no billiard room, no news-stand, no barber shop, no boot-black, no laundry—and in these respects, at ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... artificer to raise His wordy monument—such lives as these Make death a dull misnomer and its pomp An empty vesture. Let resounding lives Re-echo splendidly through high-piled vaults And make the grave their spokesman—such as he Are as the hidden streams that, underground, Sweeten the pastures for the grazing kine, Or as spring airs that bring through prison bars The scent of freedom; ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... Almanac" is an unfortunate misnomer for what is, properly speaking, the "Astronomical Ephemeris." It is quite a large volume, from which the world draws all its knowledge of times and seasons, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the past and future positions of the stars ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Fortnightly, and still it is The Fortnightly. Of all the serial publications of the day, it probably is the most serious, the most earnest, the least devoted to amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose,—and yet it has the face to show itself month after month to the world, with so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of modern literature are aware, a very serious thing to change the name of a periodical. By doing so you begin an altogether new enterprise. Therefore should the name be well chosen;—whereas ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... human mind is a living thing—ever re-adjusting itself to environments that various factors have created. This readjustment of our methods in teaching and of our policies in administration, we know, is a very delicate process. But it has to be done and done rightly if education is not to be a misnomer. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... organization of the 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
... 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 ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... became apparent 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
... sarvice, said the major- domo; and if-so-be that they ship a hand for my berth, or place a new steward aft, I shall throw up my commission in less time than you can put a pilot-boat in stays. Thof Squire Dickon this was a common misnomer with Benjamin is a nice gentleman, and as good a man to sail with as heart could wish, yet I shall tel the squire, dye see, in plain English, and thats my native tongue, that if-so-be he is thinking of putting any ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... certain respects well adapted to withstand a siege. The old residents delighted to call it a city. Newcomers, who had Continental ideas on the subject, inclined to think the term a misnomer, and a reflection upon Europe and America. But although its buildings were not high, nor its houses very majestic, Kimberley was a rich place, and a large place, with a good white population and a better coloured one. It had its theatre, and it had its Mayor. Arrogant greenhorns ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... name in going about, for people to pick up," he explained to Mugby High-street, through the Inn-window, "and that name at least was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson!—Not to mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 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 and ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... began to worry about some way to get over to the village. The horses were all out at work upon the farm, except Old Prancer, a superannuated old horse, who was never used except for Mrs. Wharton or the girls to drive; for, whatever claims "Prancer" may once have had to his name, it had been a misnomer for some years past, and no one suspected him of ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... a misnomer to write of "Reform" as a single thing. Reform is, as a matter of fact, all sorts of things. The name has been applied to a number of separate political agitations, which have been started by different people at different ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... master Had moulded in the mimic planter, Whether 't was Pope, or Coke, or Burn, I never yet could justly learn: But knowing well, that any head Is made to answer for the dead, (And sculptors first their faces frame, And after pitch upon a name, Nor think it aught of a misnomer To christen Chaucer's busto Homer, Because they both have beards, which, you know, Will mark them well from Joan, and Juno,) For some great man, I could not tell But Neck might answer just as well, So perch'd it up, all in a row ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... 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 ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... comfortable and happy home of the Montgomerys, was indeed no misnomer; for in this beautiful and sylvan retreat every heart was truly made glad and every guest only felt sad when the summons ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... railway of 150 miles in length, the first section of the great transcontinental line, which was to extend from Palmerston to Port Augusta, was built to connect Pine Creek, where there was gold to be found, with the seaboard. South Australia was more than ever a misnomer for this State. Victoria lay more to the south than our province, and now that we stretched far inside the tropics the name seemed ridiculous. My friend Miss Sinnett suggested Centralia as the appropriate name for the ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... brought up on maxims which presuppose mental deficiency and constitutional carelessness. But the naturally over-thoughtful and too-conscientious child, the child to whom applies Sir John Lubbock's observation that the term "happy childhood" is sometimes a misnomer, needs no admonition to "Try, try again," and to ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... 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 them the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... nutlets. After their maturity, either the mouth gapes from dryness, or the appendage drops off altogether, from the same cause, to release the seeds. Old herb doctors, who professed to cure hydrophobia with this species, are responsible for its English misnomer. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... your exercises as merely physical. The expression "physical training" is a misnomer. All training is the action of mind. It may manifest itself in a physical direction, but training itself,—the putting forth,—is mental. It is the emotion we feel more than the movement ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... roof. Ordinarily, of course, its foliage was as green as the leaves on the maples of the avenue or on the neighbouring elms, and the name of the Inn might have seemed to the summer or winter traveller an odd misnomer; but in autumn when the frost came early and the great mass of green flushed to a deep crimson it could not have been known more appropriately than as the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... dropping off at the other. To say, therefore, that he is the same person as he was when a child, or as he would be when an old man,—is, when we know that every atom of his physical frame has changed again and again during the course of years, a popular delusion, or at least a misnomer used for convenience' sake; as when we say that the sun rises and sets, when we know that the earth moves, and not the sun. A man, therefore, according to this school, is really no more a person, one and indivisible, than is the coral with its million polypes, the tree with its ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... foggy afternoon as he climbed the long wind-swept hill of California Street,—one of those bleak, gray intervals that made the summer a misnomer to any but the liveliest San Franciscan fancy. There was no warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor shade within or without, only one monotonous, universal neutral tint over every thing. There was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets: there was a dreary ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... German 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
... the -praenomen-Kaeso, which was most probably connected with the Lupercal worship (see Rom. Forschungen, i. 17), is found exclusively among the Quinctii and Fabii: the form commonly occurring in authors, -Lupercus Quinctilius- and -Quinctilianus-, is therefore a misnomer, and the college belonged not to the comparatively recent Quinctilii, but to the far older Quinctii. When, again, the Quinctii (Liv. i. 30), or Quinctilii (Dion. iii. 29), are named among the Alban clans, the latter reading ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... than in the 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
... 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 proposition, and now on that September ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... 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 so much, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... reminded that the term "prig" as applied to Leslie was a misnomer; he hated the thought of the other word, which ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... impression prevalent in the community, that the rooms occupied by the inmates were fitted with sliding panels in the walls and partitions, through and by means of which most of the robberies were committed. But, as will be seen hereafter, the term is a misnomer, so far as the fact is concerned. But they had to have some distinctive appellation, and "panel house" is ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... to call your attention, Sir, to our case, which is now before a Parliamentary Committee. I am an Indian Civil Servant. I am called a member of the Uncovenanted Service, but I contend that such a term is a misnomer. Originally the Uncovenanted Service consisted of Natives of India, who were employed, without covenant, to do subordinate official work, under the direction of the Covenanted Civil Service. The bulk of these persons were overseers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... the price but it cost nothing to look. He called it widow-shopping, which was not a misnomer in Crystal City. There were plenty of widows, some lonely, some lively. Some free and uninhibited. And he did have the price ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... 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
... 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. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... 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 ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... favoured us with quotations from a little pamphlet, entitled Historical Facts connected with Nantwich and its Neighbourhood. Now, after giving this work a most careful perusal, I cannot but think that the title of the book is, in this instance at least, a misnomer. The authoress, for it was written by a lady long resident in the vicinity, has evidently wrought upon the foundations of others; and taking the veteran Ormerod as a sufficient authority, has given full vent to her imagination, and pictured, with "no 'prentice hand," the welcome visits of Milton ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... Lynmouth are frequently called the English Switzerland. I have seen such an announcement made in the local Guide-books, and heard the opinion adopted by many of the inhabitants. I am inclined to think that the name is not a misnomer, for certainly the twin villages, with their miniature manor-houses and cottage-like country-seats, are not unsuggestive of a German box of toys. But there is very little of the foreigner in the inhabitants. Rarely have I seen so much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... species underwent during the course of the 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 of ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... sighted Jardim do Mar, a village on a mound of debris with black walls of dry stone defending the terraces from surf and spray. The furthest point, where we halted half an hour, is 'Pauel do Mar' (Swamp of the Sea), apparently a misnomer. It is the port of the Fajaa da Ovelha (Ewe's landslip), whose white tenements we see perched on the estreito, or tall horizon-slope. The large harbour-town is backed by a waterfall which may prove disastrous to it; its ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... 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, every gentleman (God save the term) who takes possession of a ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... but without involving the constant repriming with active materials to replace those consumed and exhausted as above mentioned. The term "storage," as applied to this species of battery, is, however, a misnomer, and has been the cause of much misunderstanding to nontechnical persons. To the lay mind a "storage" battery presents itself in the aspect of a device in which electric energy is STORED, just as compressed air ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... which there is little or no dispute should be given and accepted as standard, but that one should be very careful about giving young teachers an idea that there is any single form under which all teaching can be subsumed. I know of no term that is more thoroughly a misnomer in our technical vocabulary than the term "general method." I teach a subject that often goes by that name, but I always take care to explain that the name does not mean, in my class, what the words seem to ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... 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 ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... scriptae. But there are many perfect participles which cannot with any propriety be called passive. Such are all those which come from intransitive or neuter verbs; and also those which so often occur in the tenses of verbs not passive. I have already noticed some instances of this misnomer; and it is better to preclude it altogether, by adhering to the true name of this Participle, THE PERFECT. Nor is that entirely true which some assert, "that this participle in the active is only found in combination;" that, "Whenever it stands alone to be parsed as a participle, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... enemies never contested the subtlety and breadth of his intellect, his adroitness and capacity in conducting state affairs, his knowledge of human nature, and the profoundness of his views. In many respects it must be confessed that his surname of The Silent, like many similar appellations, was a misnomer. William of Orange was neither "silent" nor "taciturn," yet these are the epithets which will be forever associated with the name of a man who, in private, was the most affable, cheerful, and delightful of companions, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with a twitch about the corners of his mouth that seemed to be along the sarcastic order, as if deep down in his heart the lad thought the name might be a misnomer, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... possible to imagine oneself at home, 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 from Australia. When ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... 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 a species ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... quite so. He lived to suffer such indigence, that he and 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 ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... 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 Lord! And till we are, I believe ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... one's first and second fingers into it. On close acquaintance it proves a pleasant and most healthful food. And breadfruit, ripe and well boiled or roasted! It is delicious. Breadfruit and taro are kingly vegetables, the pair of them, though the former is patently a misnomer and more resembles a sweet potato than anything else, though it is not mealy like a sweet potato, nor ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... appellation, designation, 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, titular, titulary, onomatology, patronomatology, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 his confidence. Then he remembered ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... ternary form; unfortunately, however, the latter term is used for a different kind of movement. To speak of a movement in sonata-form, containing three sections (exposition, development, and recapitulation) as in binary form, seems a decided misnomer. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... Particularly plenteous here are the 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
... 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, in more recent times by a few of our rustics, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... 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 ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... 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 ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... have been isolated, that is to say, separated in a pure state from the accompanying ore. Therefore, pure radium is a misnomer, though we often hear the term used. [Footnote: Since the above was written Madame Curie has announced to the Paris Academy of Sciences that she has succeeded in obtaining pure radium. In conjunction with Professor Debierne she treated a decegramme of bromide of radium by electrolytic ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... red. Age has assisted in heightening its lustre, and although it will never rank with the varnish of Cremona, yet it will hold its own among the varnishes of modern times. It is said that many instruments having the name of Pique in them are the work of Lupot, and this misnomer is accounted for by the story that Pique purchased them in an unvarnished state, and varnished them with his preparation. Be this as it may, it is certain that the varnish of Pique could not serve to benefit such instruments; ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the disaffection of Mr. Weston, there were complaints of his delay in providing the necessary shipping; but at last the Speedwell, of sixty tons—miserable misnomer—was purchased in Holland for the use of the emigrants; and the Mayflower, of a hundred eighty tons—whose name is immortal—was chartered in England, and was fitting for their reception. The cost of the outfit, including a trading stock of seventeen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... 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 upon the Attorney-General to produce "an account in writing ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... is to be recommended. Men who have this character run into the opposite extreme of that which we have been stigmatizing, and fail as invariably of securing success in life. To call their occasional periods of application energy, would be a sad misnomer. Such persons, indeed, are but civilized savages, so to speak; vagabonds at heart in their secret hatred of work, and only resorting to labor occasionally, like the wild Indian who, after lying for weeks about his hut, is roused by sheer hunger to start on a ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... future utility. We, the reviewer of this book, at eight years of age, though even then passionately fond of study and disdainful of childish sports, passed some of the most wretched and ungenial days of our life in 'learning by heart,' as it is called (oh! most ironical misnomer!), Propria quae maribus, 'Quae genus,' and 'As in praesenti,' a three-headed monster worse than Cerberus: we did learn them ad unguem; and to this hour their accursed barbarisms cling to our memory as ineradicably as the golden lines of AEschylus or Shakspeare. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... 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; she would rush at you with a wild scream of fury, and after ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... 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 which the father of the English rivers, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... stood at 110 degrees in the shade on the watered porch of the hotel, and deciding there was a certain risk attendant on walking in such heat, determined to make the best of what was anything but a pleasant situation, and go no farther. Drytown, in the modern application of the first syllable, is a misnomer, the "town" consisting chiefly of the hotel with accompanying bar, and a saloon ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... for the same, it would remain an important aboriginal settlement. We have no reliable data of the population at the time of the conquest. From documentary evidence Mr. Bandelier has shown that while Cholula was certainly a populous Indian pueblo, it is a misnomer to call it a city. It was a group of six distinct clusters, gathered around a common market. He estimates that its population may possibly have been thirty thousand. All explorers have mentioned the fertility of the plain in ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... selection" 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 physical facts: 1. Environment: the complex of forces, such ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... to correct a concord, emphasises eccentricities of pronunciation; for instance, he accents 'capitalist' on the second syllable, and repeats the words with grave challenge to all and sundry. Speaking of something which he wishes to stigmatise as a misnomer, he exclaims: 'It's what I call a misnomy!' And he follows the assertion with an awful suspense of utterance. He brings his speech to a close exactly with the end of the tenth minute, and, on sitting down, eyes his unknown neighbour with wrathful ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Milly used with a malicious pompousness when she wished to "put something hard up" to her lord, was of course an ironical misnomer in this modern household. In the first place there was no house, which demanded the service and the protection of a strong male,—merely a partitioned-off corner in a ten-story brick box, where no man was necessary even to shake the furnace or ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... however, to show that the title is in our case a grave misnomer. The editor adduces several recent instances which he considers exhibitions of the increasing tyranny of all the people. He believes the tyranny of all the people, if they are as selfish as they are now, would be more hopeless than the despotism of an individual; for the single ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... who occupy the eastern Caucasus, known as Daghestan, or Lezghistan, Klaproth says their name is a misnomer, just as Scythian or Tartar was used to indicate the natives of Northern Asia; adding, that they do not form one nation, as is proved by the number of dialects in use, which, however, would seem to have been derived ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... dinner, which had been served on the big lanai, the one with a northerly exposure, though exposure is indeed a misnomer in so ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... have heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who considered himself a "justice of the peace," break the holy commandment with impunity. I have even heard one, called by the misnomer, "lady," do disgrace to her sex by this sinful fault in conversation. In the household, with a group of little ones whose minds were just unfolding to receive first impressions, I have heard the parents swear as though they were licensed to do so by reason. In company, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... House and 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 ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... which has since then been a popular phrase of explanation. The facts are now known to us far more extensively than he could know them, and the adjective "unconscious," being for many of them almost certainly a misnomer, is better replaced by the vaguer term "subconscious" ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... 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
... matter! They passed who with Homer Poured out the wine at the feet of their idols: Passing, what found they? To-come a misnomer, It and their idols? ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... me a beast, and in compliment to what the animal might have been, called the same a horse. I wish to protest, in this record, against any such misnomer. The creature possessed no single equine element. Experience has satisfied me that horses stand on four legs; the horse in question stood upon three. Horses may either pace, trot, run, rack, or gallop; but mine made all the five movements at once. I think I may call his gait an eccentric stumble. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 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
... of a contradictory relation of science to faith. But the statement is a misnomer. True faith is the lushest science, even the knowledge of God. Putting fishes or birds, shells or flowers, stones or stars, in a circle or a row is a lower science than the sublime intercommunication of the soul by prayer and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... that is left after all the bran and practically all of the germ have been removed from the wheat. Whole wheat flour, or entire wheat flour, is the name given to the flour that has had a great part of the outer covering of the wheat kernel removed. It is a misnomer. Graham flour, named after Dr. Graham, is the product of the whole wheat kernel, and it will be noted that it is richer in salts and protein than the white flour and the whole wheat flour. The whole wheat flour and Graham flour we find on the market are often ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... Netherlands was a German, William of Nassau, prince of Orange.[Footnote: William (1533-1584), now commonly called "the Silent." There appears to be no contemporaneous justification of the adjective as applied to him, but the misnomer, once adopted by later writers, has insistently clung to him.] He had been governing the provinces of Holland and Zeeland when Alva arrived, but as he was already at the point of accepting Protestantism he had prudently retired into Germany, leaving his estates to be confiscated by the Spanish ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... 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 ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... sphincteric muscular arrangement at the cardiac orifice of the esophagus, so that spasmodic stenosis at this level is not possible and the term cardiospasm is, therefore, a misnomer. It was first demonstrated by the author that in so-called cardiospasm the functional closure of the esophagus occurred at the diaphragmatic level, and that it was due to the "diaphragmatic pinchcock." Anatomical studies have corroborated this finding by demonstrating a definite ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson |
