Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use mishear in a sentence

11 example sentences · verb

Mishear means to hear wrongly. Example: “I misheard when she asked for mints, and gave her mince instead.”

Examples of mishear by meaning

verbTo hear wrongly.

  • I misheard when she asked for mints, and gave her mince instead.
  • When a slickly handsome drug dealer named Legrand (Michael Beach, in the film's most seductive performance), first meets the teen-ager on the playground, he mishears the name Manigault.1996 November 23, Caryn James, “From Hero To Heroin And Back”, in The New York Times
  • A number of readers have suggested that instances like this in which a whole phrase rather than just a word is misheard, should be called mondegreens rather than eggcorns.2006 November 18, “Feedback”, in New Scientist, archived from the original on 24 May 2016, page 218

More sentences with mishear

  • Either I misspoke or you misheard.From the entry misspeak
  • And remember this other immortal line of the same song you misheard—not to mention mis-sang?2014, Christie Ridgway, Always Mine. From the entry mis-sing
  • An oronym that comes from mishearing the lyrics of a song is most often called a mondegreen.2008, Paul McFedries, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weird Word Origins, page 101. From the entry oronym
  • They have all misheard and misimitated song lyrics without great trauma.2003, Brock Dethier, From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music, page 49. From the entry misimitate
  • When one of Tim’s year 8 pupils asked him about his “favourite Italian brain rot animal”, he thought he’d misheard.2025 June 25, Elle Hunt, “From Chimpanzini Bananini to Ballerina Cappuccina: how gen alpha went wild for Italian brain rot animals”, in…. From the entry Italian brainrot
  • Hence, rather than being the result of mishearing and assimilation, the application of Hobson-Jobson to the Muharram was intentionally disparaging.2014, James Lambert, “A Much Tortured Expression: A New Look At `Hobson-Jobson'”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 27…. From the entry assimilation
  • Virenque, in a panicky mishearing, replied, “Me a dealer?21 August 2000, Julian Barnes, “The Hardest Test: Drugs and the Tour de France”, in The New Yorker. From the entry interject
  • Or had Michael misheard or mistexted?2009, Lisa Gee, Stage Mum, page 150. From the entry mistext

Meaning of mishear

  1. verb To hear wrongly.
  2. verb To misunderstand.

Full definition of mishear

Questions about mishear in a sentence

How do you use mishear in a sentence?
Mishear is used as a verb. For example: “I misheard when she asked for mints, and gave her mince instead.”
What is a short sentence with mishear?
“Either I misspoke or you misheard.”
What does mishear mean?
Mishear means to hear wrongly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mishear (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use mishear in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/mishear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.