Word.ws English Dictionary

mismean

mismean verb: to mean or intend wrongly; mistake the meaning of; misinterpret.

Verb

mismean (third-person singular simple present mismeans, present participle mismeaning, simple past and past participle mismeant)

  1. (transitive) To mean or intend wrongly; mistake the meaning of; misinterpret.
    • If we ever misstate the facts it is, alas, because sometimes we mismean the proposition that we utter.1914, Granville Stanley Hall, Carl Allanmore Murchison, The Journal of genetic psychology
    • To mismean is not to mean; to mismean is to honor a meaning glimpsed but unmeant.1978, Clayton Eshleman, What she means

Forms of mismean

third-person singular presentmismeans
present participlemismeaning
past participlemismeant
pastmismeant

Origin of mismean

From mis- + mean.

Words formed from mismean

  • mismeaning

Questions about mismean

What does mismean mean?
Mismean means to mean or intend wrongly; mistake the meaning of; misinterpret.
What part of speech is mismean?
Mismean is a verb.
What is the past tense of mismean?
The past tense of mismean is mismeant.

Words near mismean in the dictionary

  1. mismate
  2. mismated
  3. mismates
  4. mismating
  5. mismatings
  6. mismean
  7. mismeasure
  8. mismeasured
  9. mismeasurement
  10. mismeasurements
  11. mismeasures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mismean (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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