Regardless of the usage of the term Sprite, the real measure of how appropriate it is to use the term for something else is how many people get confused in this manner. I can't really tell what the average reader would think because my background is in game development, so my view is not representative.

I think people can get bogged down in the technical weeds over what a sprite is in graphics. Historically it started out as mini graphics overlays in hardware. There was a transition period motivated by Amiga documentation to have Sprites and Bobs, to distinguish, and perhaps advertise, the use of the Blitter. When software or Blitter Sprites became nearly ubiquitous, they returned to simply being called Sprites, the fairly rare use of the original form became known as Hardware Sprites. Usually it was only mouse pointers that remained as Hardware Sprites

Obviously the term Hardware Sprites is not strictly a distinguishing label either. They are all controlled by software using hardware with some degree of balance between the two.