Word.ws English Dictionary

misattribute

misattribute verb: to erroneously attribute; to falsely ascribe; used especially of authorship.

Verb

misattribute (third-person singular simple present misattributes, present participle misattributing, simple past and past participle misattributed)

  1. To erroneously attribute; to falsely ascribe; used especially of authorship.
    • “It looks like this is either an A.I. hallucination or a misattributed quote,” Ms. [Meredith] Broussard said.2026 May 19, Benjamin Mullin, quoting Meredith Broussard, “Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    misascribe

Synonyms of misattribute

Forms of misattribute

third-person singular presentmisattributes
present participlemisattributing
past participlemisattributed
pastmisattributed

Origin of misattribute

From mis- + attribute.

Questions about misattribute

What does misattribute mean?
Misattribute means to erroneously attribute; to falsely ascribe; used especially of authorship.
What part of speech is misattribute?
Misattribute is a verb.
What is the past tense of misattribute?
The past tense of misattribute is misattributed.

Words near misattribute in the dictionary

  1. misattachments
  2. misattend
  3. misattended
  4. misattending
  5. misattends
  6. misattribute
  7. misattributed
  8. misattributes
  9. misattributing
  10. misattribution
  11. misattributions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misattribute (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “misattribute.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misattribute. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.