Though Shakespeare was an earlier writer than Sheridan, "malaprop/malapropism" seems an earlier coinage than "Dogberryism", which is not attested until 1836. The synonymous term "Dogberryism" comes from the 1598 Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing in which the character Dogberry utters many malapropisms to humorous effect. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of "malapropos" in English is from 1630, and the first person known to have used the word "malaprop" specifically in the sense of "a speech error" is Lord Byron in 1814. Sheridan chose her name in humorous reference to the word malapropos, an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase mal à propos (literally "poorly placed"). Malaprop frequently misspeaks (to comic effect) by using words which do not have the meaning that she intends but which sound similar to words that do.
Malaprop" in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals. The word "malapropism" (and its earlier form, "malaprop") comes from a character named "Mrs. Malaprop in an 1895 production of The Rivals
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