mistake
Plural: mistakes
Noun
- a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention
- "he made a bad mistake"
- an understanding of something that is not correct
- "he wasn't going to admit his mistake"
- "make no mistake about his intentions"
- part of a statement that is not correct
- An error.
- A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.
Verb
Verb Forms: mistook, misteuk, mistaken, mistaking, mistakes
- To interpret wrongly or make an error.
- identify incorrectly
- "Don't mistake her for her twin sister"
- to make a mistake or be incorrect
- To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.
- To misunderstand (someone).
- To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.
- To take or choose wrongly.
Examples
- Don't mistake my kindness for weakness.
- Don’t MISTAKE the ’P’ for an ’F’ in your final Scrabble play.
- He always did mistakes on purpose.
- Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.
- There were too many mistakes in the test, that unfortunately you failed.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English mistaken, from Old Norse mistaka (“to take in error, to miscarry”); equivalent to mis- + take. Cognate with Icelandic mistaka (“to mistake”), Swedish missta (“to mistake”) (before apocope misstaga).
The noun, which replaced earlier mistaking, is derived from the verb.
Synonyms
err, error, fault, misapprehension, misidentify, misunderstanding, slip, aberration, barbarism, bloomer, blooper, blunder, boner, boo-boo, break, clanger, cock-up, erroneity, faux pas, floater, flub, fluff, fuckup, gaffe, goof, howler, inaccuracy, lapse, lapsus, mess-up, misstep, mistake, oopsy, screwup, slip-up, slipup, solecism, stumble, thinko, wrength
Scrabble Score: 13
mistake: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordmistake: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
mistake: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary