Word.ws English Dictionary

mislisten

mislisten verb: to misunderstand or misinterpret something to which one listens, especially as a result of poor attention.

Verb

mislisten (third-person singular simple present mislistens, present participle mislistening, simple past and past participle mislistened)

  1. To misunderstand or misinterpret something to which one listens, especially as a result of poor attention.
    • "I know that," said Nancy, as she stood beside the mourning mother, twisting the corner of her apron in her fingers, "many's the talk me and Mr. Murphy have had about him, and I do say he was the peaceablest boy I ever see, never misliten' any body."1861 November, Sarah A. Myers, “Legends of Dumpling Hill— Tim Bennet”, in The Ladies' Repository, volume 21, number 41
    • Larry's feeling of frustration with the class causes him to “mislisten” to the selection – although the selection may not have been appropriate.1968, Ginn Secondary School English Language and Composition Series, page 57

Examples of mislisten in a sentence

  • Did I misread or mislisten to the two positions?1981, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights...
  • Some, of course, will argue that I have misread and mislistened - - but I don ' t think so.1984, Paul K. Davis, Rand's Experience in Applying Artificial Intelligence, page 5:

Forms of mislisten

third-person singular presentmislistens
present participlemislistening
past participlemislistened
pastmislistened

Origin of mislisten

From mis- + listen.

Questions about mislisten

What does mislisten mean?
Mislisten means to misunderstand or misinterpret something to which one listens, especially as a result of poor attention.
How do you use mislisten in a sentence?
Did I misread or mislisten to the two positions?
What part of speech is mislisten?
Mislisten is a verb.
What is the past tense of mislisten?
The past tense of mislisten is mislistened.

Words near mislisten in the dictionary

  1. mislippened
  2. mislippening
  3. mislippens
  4. mislist
  5. mislisted
  6. mislisten
  7. mislistened
  8. mislistening
  9. mislistens
  10. mislisting
  11. mislists

Source and license

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