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Well, dbm (database manager) is basically that and has been called that for almost 50 years

dbm isn't a database either, and people who call it that are simply wrong.

So... Databases weren't invented, until after the name was in common use?

If someone asked me what a DB is, I'd probably start the conversation with the exact description "a file-backed map, like a hashmap".

it's not a relational database, but those aren't the only kind.

In fact the name "relational database" implies there are other kinds.

Why not?

"Database" implies there's some sort of data aggregation or query primitive under the hood.

In 1971, the Database Task Group, presented the formalisation of a standard to approaches used at the time, CODASYL (1959), in the formation of... COBOL.

There is no query primitives in the CODASYL Data Model. Only a Data Manipulation Language.

Because "relational" databases didn't really happen until the early '80s - nearly a decade later. (SQL came directly out of work on CODASYL).

We had a Database Task Group, long, long, before we had the concept of a query primitive.