Word.ws English Dictionary

misemphasize

misemphasize verb: to emphasize incorrectly or inappropriately.

Verb

misemphasize (third-person singular simple present misemphasizes, present participle misemphasizing, simple past and past participle misemphasized)

  1. To emphasize incorrectly or inappropriately.
    • But the widespread interest in intercollegiate debating and proper gratitude for what it has done to stimulate a study of the different forms of public discourse have led undergraduates, graduates, and even teachers, I think, greatly to misemphasize its importance in the field of study under...1898, Proceedings of The Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools Annual Convention, page 105
    • Instructions must accurately state the law, and must not mislead the jury or misemphasize some element.1997, Dan B. Dobbs, Paul T. Hayden, Torts and Compensation, page 14

Forms of misemphasize

third-person singular presentmisemphasizes
present participlemisemphasizing
past participlemisemphasized
pastmisemphasized

Origin of misemphasize

From mis- + emphasize.

Questions about misemphasize

What does misemphasize mean?
Misemphasize means to emphasize incorrectly or inappropriately.
What part of speech is misemphasize?
Misemphasize is a verb.
What is the past tense of misemphasize?
The past tense of misemphasize is misemphasized.

Words near misemphasize in the dictionary

  1. misemphasis
  2. misemphasise
  3. misemphasised
  4. misemphasises
  5. misemphasising
  6. misemphasize
  7. misemphasized
  8. misemphasizes
  9. misemphasizing
  10. misemploy
  11. misemployed

Source and license

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