Word.ws English Dictionary

mismotivate

mismotivate verb: to motivate toward the wrong goal.

Verb

mismotivate (third-person singular simple present mismotivates, present participle mismotivating, simple past and past participle mismotivated)

  1. To motivate toward the wrong goal.
    • We who are supposed to direct the skill learning of students bear a heavy responsibility here. We should motivate — not mismotivate; direct — not misdirect.1944, Business Education World - Volume 24, page 397
    • It is confusion between having a fixed nature and having a fixed future that mismotivates the anguish over determinism.2003, Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves

Forms of mismotivate

third-person singular presentmismotivates
present participlemismotivating
past participlemismotivated
pastmismotivated

Origin of mismotivate

From mis- + motivate.

Questions about mismotivate

What does mismotivate mean?
Mismotivate means to motivate toward the wrong goal.
What part of speech is mismotivate?
Mismotivate is a verb.
What is the past tense of mismotivate?
The past tense of mismotivate is mismotivated.

Words near mismotivate in the dictionary

  1. mismother
  2. mismothered
  3. mismothering
  4. mismothers
  5. mismotion
  6. mismotivate
  7. mismotivated
  8. mismotivates
  9. mismotivating
  10. mismould
  11. mismoulded

Source and license

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