Word.ws English Dictionary

missignal

/mɪsˈsɪɡnəl/

missignal verb: to signal wrongly or in error.

Verb

missignal (third-person singular simple present missignals, present participle (US) missignaling or (UK) missignalling, simple past and past participle (US) missignaled or (UK) missignalled)

  1. (transitive) To signal wrongly or in error
    • These problems refer to difficulties incurred when a staff member ( or members ) becomes confused in interaction and either missignals or gives confusing signals as to social role.1980, Duane S. Bishop, Behavioral Problems and the Disabled: Assessment and Management, page 368
    • False start II does not actively mis-signal what the new chapter is about.2003, Patrick Dunleavy, Authoring a PhD

Noun

missignal (plural missignals)

  1. A bad or incorrect signal
    • Is the signalling problem a reason not to pursue the policy, or is it a reason to deal with how to prevent the missignal by means of adequate disclosure?1991, Steve H. Hanke, Alan Arthur Walters, Capital Markets and Development
    • There was a missignal on the goal line and Newhall having no one to pass the ball to stuck it under his arm and made a successful quarter back run for a touch down.1994, Bill Reid, Ronald Austin Smith, Big-time Football at Harvard, 1905: The Diary of Coach Bill Reid

Forms of missignal

Verb
third-person singular presentmissignals
present participle USmissignaling
present participle UKmissignalling
past participle USmissignaled
past USmissignaled
past participle UKmissignalled
past UKmissignalled
alternative formmis-signal
Noun
pluralmissignals

Origin of missignal

From mis- + signal.

Questions about missignal

What does missignal mean?
Missignal means to signal wrongly or in error.
What part of speech is missignal?
Missignal can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce missignal?
Missignal is pronounced /mɪsˈsɪɡnəl/.
What is the past tense of missignal?
The past tense of missignal is missignaled.

Words near missignal in the dictionary

  1. misshuffling
  2. missie
  3. missies
  4. missight
  5. missign
  6. missignal
  7. missignaled
  8. missignaling
  9. missignalled
  10. missignalling
  11. missignals

Source and license

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