Misemphasize

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To emphasize incorrectly or inappropriately.

    "But the widespread interest in intercollegiate debating and proper gratitude for what it has done to stimulate a study of the different forms of public discourse have led undergraduates, graduates, and even teachers, I think, greatly to misemphasize its importance in the field of study under discussion this morning — public discourse."

Example

More examples

"But the widespread interest in intercollegiate debating and proper gratitude for what it has done to stimulate a study of the different forms of public discourse have led undergraduates, graduates, and even teachers, I think, greatly to misemphasize its importance in the field of study under discussion this morning — public discourse."

Etymology

From mis- + emphasize.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.