miswork

miswork verb: to work (something) incorrectly.

Verb

miswork (third-person singular simple present misworks, present participle misworking, simple past and past participle misworked or (rare, archaic) miswrought)

(ambitransitive) To work (something) incorrectly.
- It is possible to miswork a piece of steel so as to have a cavity in the center.1832, Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court, page 44
- If any person who, with the intent to defraud or appropriate to his own use the horse, mule, jack, jenny, ox, cow, calf, sheep, hog, or other stock of another, shall willfully miswork or misbrand any stock not his own, or kill any stock running at large, whether branded, marked, or not, shall, on...1885, The General Statutes of the State of Nevada

Noun

miswork (countable and uncountable, plural misworks)

A failure to operate properly; malfunction.
- No doubt, if a member of every family knew how to mesmerize, and would apply the process when the first symptom of miswork in the organism appeared, physicians should have very little to do .1855, William Neilson, Mesmerism in Its Relation to Health and Disease, page 111
- The larger this allowance, the less the risk of conveyor shut-down due to miswork is, and the higher the possibility of increased production by increasing the conveyer speed became.1969, Bertil S. M. Granborg, Proceedings: Western Periodicals Company, page 119
Work that is inappropriate or badly done.
- Miswork has to be avoided at all costs, as it does not contribute to the evolution of the soul.1970, Swami Panrimalai, The Holy Panchakshara and Other Writings of Sri-La-Sri Panrimalai Swamigal, page 86
- So far those who have come to me with that diagnosis have all been instances of miswork, and have mainly needed for their cure brain exercise of a more general kind.1988, Adolphus Edward Bridger, An Unknown Monograph on Depression

Examples of miswork in a sentence

Yes, it is foolish indeed when people who miswork the land, acting contrary to the laws of nature, complain afterwards that it is depleted and invent the law of diminishing returns,1957, Gennadiĭ Semenovich Fish, The Land and the Corn: Popular Science Essays, page 66:
I find it absurd that because we miswork one case, we can lose what amounts to either $7 or $14 million in 1 fiscal year.1984, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Ways and Means. Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation, Impact...
One or another would come late, miswork the tape machine, help families make appointment times when they could not be taped, be unable to locate newly assigned families for a week or two, etc.2013, Kalman Flomenhaft, The Challenge of Family Therapy, page 185:
Hierarchies and a government that caters to them have given those who manage businesses every right to mismanage, and employees little right to miswork.2020, Norman Jones, Performance Management in the 21st Century:

Forms of miswork

Verb
third-person singular present	misworks
present participle	misworking
past participle	misworked
past	misworked
past participle (archaic, rare)	miswrought
past (archaic, rare)	miswrought
Noun
plural	misworks

Origin of miswork

From mis- + work.

Questions about miswork

What does miswork mean?: Miswork means to work (something) incorrectly.
How do you use miswork in a sentence?: Yes, it is foolish indeed when people who miswork the land, acting contrary to the laws of nature, complain afterwards that it is depleted and invent the law of diminishing returns,
What part of speech is miswork?: Miswork can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of miswork?: The past tense of miswork is misworked.

Words near miswork in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: miswork (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “miswork.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/miswork. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.