Ghost word

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A ghost word is a word that has been published in a dictionary, or has been adopted as genuine, as the result of misinterpretation or a typographical error.

An example is the supposed Homeric Greek word στητη = "woman", which arose thus: In Iliad Book 1 line 6 is the phrase διαστητην ερισαντε = "two [= Achilles and Agamemnon ] stood apart making strife", where later someone not familiar with dual number verb inflections read it as δια στητην ερισαντε = "two making strife because of a στητη", and he guessed that στητη meant the woman Briseis who was the subject of the strife.

Another is the placename Sarum, which arose by misunderstanding the medieval-type writing abbreviation Sar~ which was intended to mean some early form such as "Sarisberie" (= Salisbury).