MALAPROP

a character in The Rivals , a comic play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan . Mrs Malaprop is the aunt of Lydia Languish, and is noted for the way she confuses words that sound similar, e.g. saying ‘the ineffectual (= useless) qualities of a woman’ instead of ‘the intellectual qualities of a woman’. Such a wrong use of words is called a malapropism after her.