Word.ws English Dictionary

missing the mark

missing the mark is the present participle and gerund of miss the mark.

Meaning of miss the mark

Verb

miss the mark (third-person singular simple present misses the mark, present participle missing the mark, simple past and past participle missed the mark)

  1. (literally) Of a projectile, to fail to hit the target.
  2. (figuratively) To fail to achieve the intended result.
    • The party's manifesto missed the mark and failed to attract people's attention.

Questions about missing the mark

What is missing the mark the present participle and gerund of?
Missing the mark is the present participle and gerund of miss the mark.

Words near missing the mark in the dictionary

  1. missing stairs
  2. missing stays
  3. missing the boat
  4. missing the bus
  5. missing the forest for the trees
  6. missing the mark
  7. missing the memo
  8. missing the point
  9. missing the wood for the trees
  10. missing the woods for the trees
  11. missing time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: missing the mark (page history and authors); miss the mark (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: “missing the mark.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/missing_the_mark. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.