It's common knowledge that Smilodon has been mistakenly called the "saber-toothed tiger", yet it and other machairodontines were not closely related to the tiger or other members of the felid subfamily Pantherinae. However, Smilodon was the not the first saber-toothed cat to be bestowed the epithet "saber-toothed tiger". In a poem about Pleistocene mammals found in England, British poet Thomas Miller refers to the European machairodontine Homotherium latidens as a "saber-toothed tiger", in which case people in Europe and America had yet to literally use the term "saber-tooth tiger" for the Smilodon.
Link:
https://incertaesedisblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/28/the-origin-of-sabre-toothed-tiger/