Word.ws English Dictionary

misfiring

misfiring is the present participle and gerund of misfire.

Meaning of misfire

Verb

misfire (third-person singular simple present misfires, present participle misfiring, simple past and past participle misfired)

  1. To fail to discharge properly.
  2. To fail to ignite in the proper sequence.
  3. To initiate an action potential without the proper stimulus.
  4. (broadly) To fail to achieve the anticipated result.
    • His practical joke misfired and he nearly burnt my left hand.

See all 6 meanings of misfire

Noun

misfiring (plural misfirings)

  1. The situation where something misfires.
    • He has written a book that not only contributes to our understanding of the elusive magic of music but also illuminates the strange workings, and misfirings, of the human mind.2007 November 20, Michiko Kakutani, “Power to Soothe the Savage Breast and Animate the Hemispheres”, in New York Times

Forms of misfiring

pluralmisfirings

Words that rhyme with misfiring

16 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about misfiring

What does misfiring mean?
Misfiring means the situation where something misfires.
What is misfiring the present participle and gerund of?
Misfiring is the present participle and gerund of misfire.
What part of speech is misfiring?
Misfiring is a noun.
What is the plural of misfiring?
The plural of misfiring is misfirings.

Words near misfiring in the dictionary

  1. misfire
  2. misfired
  3. misfirer
  4. misfirers
  5. misfires
  6. misfiring
  7. misfirings
  8. misfit
  9. misfit stream
  10. misfit streams
  11. misfitdom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misfiring (page history and authors); misfire (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: “misfiring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misfiring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.