Word.ws English Dictionary

misderive

misderive verb: to derive erroneously.

Verb

misderive (third-person singular simple present misderives, present participle misderiving, simple past and past participle misderived)

  1. (transitive) To derive erroneously.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To turn or divert improperly; to misdirect.
    • […] this practice of impropriation, which was first set on foot by unjust and sacrilegious bulls from Rome, is justly offensive both to God and good men; as misderiving the well-meant devotions of charitable and pious souls into a wrong channel.1649, Joseph Hall, Resolutions and Decisions of Divers Practicall cases of Conscience

Forms of misderive

third-person singular presentmisderives
present participlemisderiving
past participlemisderived
pastmisderived

Origin of misderive

From mis- + derive.

Questions about misderive

What does misderive mean?
Misderive means to derive erroneously.
What part of speech is misderive?
Misderive is a verb.
What is the past tense of misderive?
The past tense of misderive is misderived.

Words near misderive in the dictionary

  1. misdeposited
  2. misdeposition
  3. misdepositions
  4. misderivation
  5. misderivations
  6. misderive
  7. misderived
  8. misderives
  9. misderiving
  10. misdescribe
  11. misdescribed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misderive (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: “misderive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misderive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.