mislight

mislight verb: to deceive or lead astray with a false light.

Verb

mislight (third-person singular simple present mislights, present participle mislighting, simple past and past participle mislighted or mislit)

To deceive or lead astray with a false light.
- No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee, Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there is none to affright thee.1897, Joseph S. Moorat, A Country Garland of Ten Songs Gathered from the Hesperides of Robert Herrick, page 17
- Twitches of a smile mislight up her face.1949, Jacob Gould Schurman, James Edwin Creighton, Frank Thilly, The Philosophical Review, page 143
To light improperly.
- Such glassware , with lights so arranged , usually allows about as much light to pass downward through the glass (transmitted) as is reflected or diffused upwards , and almost invariably interiors mislighted in this way are recognizable by bright spots of light directly above the fixture on the...1913, Francisco Laurent Godinez, The Lighting Book, page 84
- If the laboratory makes a mistake and “mislights" a scene, they will stand the loss of making it over.1927, American Photography - Volume 21, page 290

mislight (plural mislights)

An error in projection in which the projected image is a combination of two frames.
- This error is obviated to a large degree when the perforated strip arrangement is used. If a machine is threaded properly and has made one correct print, it is impossible for a mislight to occur if the machine is set properly before the motor switch is snapped on,1953, William H. Offenhauser, 16-mm Sound Motion Pictures, page 403
- Notches weaken the negative, and tabs sometimes come off, causing mislights.1976, SMPTE Journal: Publication of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
An instance when an afterburner does not light the injected fuel properly.
- This improved by 11,000 ft. the repeatable afterburner operation capability, without mislight or stall.1977, Aviation Week & Space Technology - Volume 106, page 118
- The F-14A fleet aircraft with TF30-P-412A engines were experiencing numerous afterburner mislights on lighting attempts during sustained high "g" load maneuvers.1978, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1979, page 4081

And I hold such in derision; They are spell-bound and mislighted by Reason.1968, Masterworks of World Drama: Classical Greece, page 216:
In either type of printer, if a single shift is passed over accidentally, the whole of the rest of the reel will be mislighted.1983, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film, page 200:
Mislights, blowouts, or stalls should not occur since there is more than enough adequate margin to allow for normal transient operation.1983, International Journal of Turbo & Jet-engines - Volume 1, page 236:

Verb
third-person singular present	mislights
present participle	mislighting
past participle	mislighted
past	mislighted
past participle	mislit
past	mislit
Noun
plural	mislights

From mis- + light.

What does mislight mean?: Mislight means to deceive or lead astray with a false light.
How do you use mislight in a sentence?: And I hold such in derision; They are spell-bound and mislighted by Reason.
What part of speech is mislight?: Mislight can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of mislight?: The past tense of mislight is mislighted.

Adapted from Wiktionary: mislight (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “mislight.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mislight. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.