misgrab
/ˈmɪsɡɹæb/
misgrab noun: a failed attempt to grab something.
Noun
misgrab (plural misgrabs)
- A failed attempt to grab something.
- He hauls in the twenty yards of it in frantic haste, making many a misgrab and getting more excited, I'll warrant, than he ever was with any but his first bear.1903, Forest and Stream - Volume 61, page 215
- I made a misgrab and it touched the saw and flew up.1916, Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Department, page 667
- A mistake.
- It is easy for the American visitor to make a “misgrab” here because, blinded by the surface similarities, he fails to take the hidden differences into consideration.1964, William J. Danker, Two Worlds Or None: Rediscovering Missions, page 91
- Unfortunately, notwithstanding all his wisdom, he had made a misgrab, for Noah, the chief of the saved, was soon unmasked as a drunken sot who disported with his own daughters.2019, Chaz Bufe, Dan Arel, Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief
Verb
IPA/mɪsˈɡɹæb/
misgrab (third-person singular simple present misgrabs, present participle misgrabbing, simple past and past participle misgrabbed)
- To fail in an attempt to grab something
- […] misgrabbing or catching an apparatus or opponent2003, Aaron Rubin, Sports Injuries and Emergencies: A Quick Response Manual, page 130
- Schliemann misgrabbed his cup to toast the deal, and its toppled plastic cylinder rolled spillessly from side to side in the valley of his tray.2007, Geoff Wyss, Tiny Clubs, page 116
Examples of misgrab in a sentence
- A slip or a misgrab and he would fall under his own engine.1938, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, page 127:
- All around was nothing but air, the endless abyss of Virga; a misgrab here would send you on a slow trip around the world, with the birds, bugs, and fish making a moving feast of you along the way.2007, Karl Schroeder, Sun of Suns, page 141:
- ... it's always some trusting young volunteer who misgrabs a burning wire with his tongs, misturns the thirsty steel and flies in a beautiful ten-metre red arc into the black air2019, Jiří Pelán, Bohumil Hrabal. A Full-length Portrait, page 22:
Forms of misgrab
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | misgrabs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | misgrabs |
| present participle | misgrabbing |
| past participle | misgrabbed |
| past | misgrabbed |
Origin of misgrab
From mis- + grab.
Questions about misgrab
- What does misgrab mean?
- Misgrab means a failed attempt to grab something.
- How do you use misgrab in a sentence?
- A slip or a misgrab and he would fall under his own engine.
- What part of speech is misgrab?
- Misgrab can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce misgrab?
- Misgrab is pronounced /ˈmɪsɡɹæb/.
- What is the plural of misgrab?
- The plural of misgrab is misgrabs.
Words near misgrab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: misgrab (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “misgrab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misgrab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.