20 Words and Phrases That Don’t Mean What You Think They Do

Buffalo wings

Those of us of a certain age recall when singer and reality TV star Jessica Simpson turned down an appetizer by saying, “I don’t eat buffalo.” Um, Buffalo wings are chicken. The recipe for these crispy chicken wings tossed in a spicy sauce was developed in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY.

Adams says any confusion stems from “the assumption on the part of the person reading or hearing the phrase that the wing has to be part of what comes before it, when, in fact, it’s the other way around.”

Arabic numerals

Nope, Arabic numerals didn’t originate on the Arabian Peninsula. The Brahmi numeral system, which is the basis for the numbers we use today, began in ancient India. Later, around the 9th century, scholars like Al-Khwarizmi (from whom we derive the word algorithm) translated Indian mathematical texts into Arabic.

Europeans called the numbers 0 through 9 Arabic numerals because they were introduced to Western Europe around 1200 by Arabic-speaking scholars, as well as other prominent men of science like Leonardo of Pisa (aka Fibonacci) and Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II). But even the earliest depiction of the numerals in English, in The Crafte of Nombrynge (circa 1350), identifies them as the “teen figurys of Inde,” or ten figures of India.

Today, we still use the term Arabic numerals to distinguish them from the Roman numerals we see in historical texts and Super Bowl branding.

Koala bear

The first part of the name of the marsupial native to Australia is not a misnomer. Koala (and other variants of it) is thought to mean “no drink” in the Aboriginal language, referring to the belief that the animals don’t need to drink water because they get most of their moisture from eucalyptus leaves.

The bear part? Yeah, that’s wrong. But you can’t blame the European settlers who thought the cute, cuddly koala resembled a bear, says Adams. “You see something you’ve never seen before, but it looks like something you have seen before, so you use that name for it.”

Bluetooth

Ever wonder why the wireless technology that lets you listen to music in the house or phone calls in the car is called Bluetooth? Its name, according to the company, was inspired by 10th-century Viking king Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, known for uniting warring tribes of Scandinavia into one kingdom, just as Bluetooth technology aimed to unite different devices and industries with one standard. The iconic Bluetooth logo is a combination of the king’s runic initials (ᚼ and ᛒ). A dead, dark-blue/gray tooth, by the way, is what earned the king his nickname.

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa, are home to lots of canaries, but that’s not how they got their name. (Actually, the birds are named for the islands.) According to the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, published in the 1st century, the islands also once had “a multitude of dogs of a huge size.” So the name is actually a corruption of canis, which means dog in Latin.

Head cheese

Head cheese is not originally English. It’s the translation of a French dish: fromage de tête, a terrine made from edible parts of a pig’s head (cheeks, jowls and sometimes tongue). “It’s just as metaphorical in French as it is in English,” says Adams, “because we do not have cheese in our heads, although it would explain a lot about some people. But that’s not my field of expertise.”

So why cheese? “Cheese is kind of a tricky word, because it definitely refers to cheese, but it also kind of refers to any food that has the consistency of cheese or takes the shape of a finished cheese; cheese-adjacent, if you will,” Adams explains. “And it’s that texture that you get when you make the terrine that is head cheese.”

Adams says head cheese is one of those things that’s not technically misnamed: “It’s not a misnomer so much as it is just a metaphorical transfer, as we say in the lexicography world.”

Catgut

If you play classical violin, you know that the strings on the instrument can be made from a material called catgut. That might lead you to believe that they are made from the entrails of a feline. The fact that according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), catgut is from the Dutch kattedarm, which means guts or intestines of the cat, may seem to back up that belief. But, you’d be wrong.

Catgut is actually made from the intestines of sheep, and it’s not known that cat innards were ever used for the purpose of stringing musical instruments. A possible explanation for this misleading word is that it may have been altered from kitgut, a compound in which the now-obsolete kit meant fiddle.

Titmouse

The word titmouse is a classic case of how homophones and language contact can reshape a word beyond recognition, according to Adams. “Titmouse is truly an unnecessary compound, because in Old English, the word māsa just meant small bird.” Then the Vikings came over, and with them they brought the word titlingr, which could mean sparrow but could also mean another type of bird called a tit.

“In the way that sometimes happens when cultures meet and they have their different words for things, one word is explained in terms of the other one, and you end up with a new word or phrase,” Adams says. “Before you know it, you have a titmāsa.”

Over time, however, English speakers lost the word māsa, and since it no longer made sense, they reanalyzed it into mouse because it was the closest word they knew. “They had to have an explanation for what that now obsolete word māsa, says Adams. “It must be mouse.”

“So titmouse ends up being a misnomer because people think it’s a mouse. But before then, it was a perfectly justifiable word for the bird. It was literally exactly what it said.”

Pont Neuf

It might seem that the oldest bridge spanning the Seine River in Paris was misnamed, but it’s not. When it opened in 1607, it was named Pont Neuf (new bridge) to distinguish it from the bridges that were already there—all of which have since been replaced. As Adams says, “the Pont Neuf was new when it was built. That was a right nomer, not a misnomer.”

Fireflies

Though there was once a mythical fly believed to live in or be generated by fire, the insects that illuminate the summer night sky are very real. And they are not flies, nor are they on fire. The earliest known usage of firefly was in 1598, according to the OED, but what we’ve called fireflies since 1655 are in fact click beetles that produce light by bioluminescence. They’re more commonly known as lightning bugs in the South and the Midwest.

Coat of arms

“Here’s another one of those things that wasn’t a misnomer when it was introduced into English,” says Adams. In medieval times, he explains, you used to have to wear a cotte d’armes, a literal coat with your heraldic bearings “embroidered on it, or brocaded on, or whatever the process was” for identification purposes. “But since we no longer wear our family arms on a coat, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to us anymore,” he adds.

Guinea pig

If you had one of these as a classroom pet, you know a guinea pig is a rodent—not a pig. So, how did this South American native end up with such a misleading name? Some say the rodent was named for its resemblance to a young guinea hog (Potamochœrus), a small breed of pig. (I don’t see it.)

Others believe the first part of the guinea pig’s moniker (first recorded per the OED in 1664) is associated with trade routes—much in the way the turkey was named. Perhaps the rodent was brought to Europe aboard “Guineamen,” ships that plied the triangle trade between England, Guinea (West Africa) and South America. The second part is thought to be related to the pig-like grunting noises made by the animal.

Sweetbread

Considered a delicacy at high-end restaurants, sweetbreads are actually the pancreas, or thymus gland, of a calf or other young animal. The word, first recorded in the OED in 1565, has its roots in Old English. Sweet was also used to mean pleasing (not just sugary), and bræd meant flesh. So the term makes complete sense when you think about it.

“Two things are true about sweetbreads,” says Adams. First, they’re kind of doughy, like bread, and they’re “sweeter than, say, a steak from the same calf.” So you can see how someone worked out that name, he says. But today it seems misleading, “because we don’t eat it often, and we don’t understand why those words would be applied to the thing.”

Funny bone

There’s nothing funny about it. When you hit the ulnar nerve near the end of your elbow, it results in tingling or numbness. Though the sensitive spot is not a bone, its name is probably related to the similarities between the humerus, a bone in the upper arm, and the word humorous.

Jerusalem artichoke

Neither from the Middle East nor an artichoke at all, the Jerusalem artichoke is a species of sunflower (Helianthus tuberosus) native to North America and widely cultivated for its edible, knobby, tuberous roots. Some believe the name is derived from the word girasole, which means sunflower in Italian. The tubers are also known as sunchokes, which seems to make a little more sense.

White chocolate

This one isn’t just a misnomer. Some of us consider it an abomination (I said what I said). Developed in the early 20th century, white chocolate is a confection of cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, lecithin and flavorings—but no cocoa solids.

“There’s no chocolate in there,” says Adams. “It’s a manufacturing and marketing ploy to provide something in addition to chocolate that could be sold to people who are interested in chocolate.” Gimme the real stuff instead.

Greenland

Speaking of marketing ploys …

Norse explorer Erik the Red, who discovered the world’s largest island (that’s not a continent) around 985, called it Greenland (Grœnland in Old Norse) because “it would induce settlers to go there, if the land had a good name,” Adams says. Situated between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, Greenland is anything but green: About 80% of the island is under a massive ice sheet.

Rocky Mountain oysters

Rocky Mountain oysters are a euphemism for the testicles of a bull, sheep or other animal, cooked and eaten as a delicacy. “When that comes up in the 19th century, people just didn’t talk publicly that way, at least they knew that it wasn’t encouraged to do so in society,” says Adams.

“So you needed a euphemism, partly so you weren’t talking about testicles and partly so that people would actually eat them, because if you told them what they were, they might not,” Adams adds. “Also, it’s a joke, because there is no ocean in the Rocky Mountains.”

Chinese checkers

The name of this board game, in which players move marbles from one corner to the opposite one on a star-shaped board, is definitely misleading: There’s no connection to China, and it’s not really a variant of checkers. The game now denoted by this name is a late 19th-century German variation of the board game Halma, adapted to allow for more players, according to the OED.

The new game was released in the U.S. in 1928 under the name Hop-Ching Checkers, and again in 1938 as Chinese Star Checkers by a different company, which claimed it was “a game from the Orient for all ages.” Some believe this blatant line was an attempt to make the board game sound exotic and more appealing to consumers. Did it work? Well, the name stuck.

Starfish

We know today that a starfish isn’t technically a fish. It’s an echinoderm. But back in Old English, fish (or fisc) meant any animal that lives entirely in the water. And this star-shaped marine invertebrate does, in fact, live in the water. So the name isn’t wrong, per se. As Adams says, “there’s a legitimate reason for that word to be used for what it denotes.”

Like other words that seemingly come out of left field, there are justifiable reasons for starfish and other words to have misleading names. “We can all cry misnomer when we don’t understand a word or a phrase,” Adams says. “It might seem misnamed to you, but if you knew the facts, then you’d think, ‘Huh, OK, I get it.'”

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Sources:

• Michael Adams, professor of English and linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington and author of Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon; phone interview, Aug. 18, 2025
• Merriam-Webster
• Online Etymology Dictionary
• Oxford English Dictionary
• The Phrase Finder: “Meanings and Origins”
• Brittanica: “Development of modern numerals and numeral systems”
• Bluetooth: “Origin of the name”
• Australian Koala Foundation: “History of koalas”