mistake
[mɪˈsteɪk] verb, noun
Forms mistakes mistaking mistook mistaken
- verb (transitive) To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another. “Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.”
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To misunderstand (someone).
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.
- verb (obsolete, rare) To take or choose wrongly.
- noun An error. “There were too many mistakes in the test that, unfortunately, made you fail.”
- noun (baseball) A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.
Synonyms
aberration bloomer blooper blunder boner boo-boo break clanger cock-up disadventure error fault faux pas floater flub fluff fuckup gaffe goof howler misunderstanding misapprehension misidentify err slip
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. Compare Swedish misstag (“mistake”, noun), Faroese mistak (“mitake”, noun), Icelandic mistak (“mistake”, noun).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To take or choose wrongly. [Obs. or R.] Shak.
- verb To take in a wrong sense; to misunderstand misapprehend, or misconceive; as, to mistake a remark; to mistake one's meaning.
- verb To err in knowledge, perception, opinion, or judgment; to commit an unintentional error.
- noun An apprehending wrongly; a misconception; a misunderstanding; a fault in opinion or judgment; an unintentional error of conduct.
Etymology [Pref. mis- + take: cf. Icel. mistaka.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “mistake”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details