mispromote

Verb

mispromote (third-person singular simple present mispromotes, present participle mispromoting, simple past and past participle mispromoted)

1. To promote incorrectly; to advertise or advocate for something other than the intended use.
   • You can weep tears because of an up-to-date vision which misunderstands, mispromotes and bends the truth so as to preserve the eternal powerlessness of Margaret Fuller.1988, Laurie James, Why Margaret Fuller Ossoli is Forgotten, page 31
   • As black women's works are rejected or mispromoted, " [t] he public ... is allowed to think that black women are generally incapable of literary creation" (Stetson 89) .1996, Linda Tate, A Southern Weave of Women: Fiction of the Contemporary South, page 181
2. To promote by mistake; to elevate to a position for which (someone) is unqualified.
   • But the real tragedy, it seems to me, is that these victims of hasty or uninformed promotions struggle from job to job with the stigma of failure when the real failure was not theirs, but that of those who mispromoted them.1957, Foundry Management & Technology - Volume 85, Issues 1-6, page 174
   • People are C players when they are mishired, mispromoted, or misdeployed within their company.1997, BD Smart, GH Smart, Topgrading the organization