miscatch

Noun

miscatch (plural miscatches)

1. A catch in which the wrong type of fish is caught, and so must be released.
   • Forty-five vessels had, during the whole fishing time, fished 3266 times and caught 21,623 barrels of herrings, consequently on an average 6.66 barrels every time the nets were laid; however, there having been 882 times a miscatch, the above-named number really has been caught in 3266-882=2,384...1858, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal
   • At temperatures below fifty, the proportion of catch to miscatch is almost equal ; between fifty and sixty degrees the proportion is about four catches to one miscatch.1859, Walter White, Northumberland, and the Border, page 242
2. The act of catching in which the thing that is caught is then dropped; a fumble.
   • On dealing with a shot which is coming rather higher he should stand square to the kicker with his body well behind his hands, in the event of a miscatch or fumble.1899, Montague Shearman, Football: History, page 142
   • We regret the slip, but then we take consolation in the fact that the best of jugglers sometimes make a miscatch.1921, American Builder - Volume 31, page 113
3. An act of catching in which something is caught wrongly, such as in the wrong position.
   • It is necessary to jet the water of about 50-100mm at the end of free flying, as lower/ smaller than this limit to instabilise the weft causing mispick or miscatch problems on the other side thus causing the machine to stop.2002, Textile Trends - Volume 45, page 32
   • A miscatch is where the animal's neck is not in the appropriate area and the animal is not caught as it is intended to be. When a miscatch occurs, adjustments should be made so that proper restraint is applied. If a procedure is performed while the animal is experiencing a miscatch, it is...2019, Kristin J Holtgrew-Bohling, Large Animal Clinical Procedures for Veterinary Technicians, page 48
4. A misperception or misidentification.
   • Thus, miscatches on indices may well to detected after only two groups of tests, one group on a prediction index and the other on the corresponding syntactic word class index, instead of after a minimum of six as in the former version of the program (five groups of tests on the prediction indices...1964, Harvard University. Computation Laboratory, Mathematical Linguistics and Automatic Translation, page 14
   • A miscatch of sound, slip of hand, waver in decision and $100,000 is dropped into a mile-deep hole never again to be fished up.1989, John Schmidt, Growing Up in the Oil Patch, page 42

Verb

IPA/mɪsˈkætʃ/

miscatch (third-person singular simple present miscatches, present participle miscatching, simple past and past participle miscaught)

1. To make a miscatch (any sense).
   • How great a stumbling block to a good dictator would be the amanuensis who lacks concentration of mind, or through carelessness miscatches a word, and calls out to him in the midst of a brilliant flow of ideas, “wait please, I have not caught the word." or, "excuse me, did you say so and so?"1890 February, Mrs. M. A. O'Neil, “Amanuenses Work From a Woman's Stand-Point”, in The Journal of Commercial Education, volume 5, page 166
   • After a pause she added these words, memorable forever; words whose meaning she may have miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she may have rightly understood; as to that, also, we can never know; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and revealed...1899, Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, The Writings of Mark Twain, page 191
2. To stutter or break the flow of words when speaking.
   • A woman near—her face livid in the stage-light and her eyes like cairngorms—miscaught a line and laughed aloud. Her panic at the sound of her own voice alone, was that of a doe parted from the herd.1913, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: Volume 92
   • On occasions when he might have discussed Gray with someone other than Jeannie, an anxiety would paw at his throat, his voice would miscatch, and his mind would stutter over what he'd meant to say.1982, Greg Barron, Groundrush, page 5