misguide
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of misguide
1325–75; mis- 1 + guide; replacing Middle English misgien; see guy 2
Explanation
When you misguide someone, you lead them the wrong way. You might accidentally misguide a tourist by instructing him to turn left when he should have gone right. Use the verb misguide when you point someone in the wrong direction, either literally or in a figurative way: "I didn't mean to misguide you when I promised you'd love camping in the desert." Giving bad advice is one way to misguide someone, and giving bad driving directions is another. In the fourteenth century, misguide meant "to go astray," rather than "to lead someone else astray."
Vocabulary lists containing misguide
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As expectations about what these products should detect increase, so too do the opportunities to let them misguide us and cause us to punish or profile innocent people.
From Slate • Dec. 11, 2023
“The agents guide the people, or misguide them, into going illegally,” Anil Pratham, director of the anti-human trafficking unit of the Gujarat police, said in a telephone interview.
From New York Times • Mar. 14, 2022
Don’t let the instant success stories of the past decade misguide you.
From Washington Post • Sep. 30, 2021
The words lingered as he drove me home in silence, forming the genesis of a mantra that would frequently misguide me as I transformed myself into an Everything But Girl.
From Salon • Feb. 10, 2013
To misguide strangers, and forbye a', my ain natural cousin, that had showed me sic kindness—I wad rather they had burned half the Lennox in their folly!
From Rob Roy — Volume 02 by Scott, Walter, Sir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
