Misfigure
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An incorrect figure.
"All the uncertainties and misfigures of plans like this profit the agents and the companies, never the insured."
- 2 The misfigured portion of an optical surface, or the presence of such a portion.
"Should the element be misfigured, then these aberrations would be combined with the actual misfigure."
- 1 To miscalculate; to make a computational error.
"But you make another mistake — you misfigure dates again — and you've got something more to answer for."
- 2 To make an incorrect assessment.
""Now, see here, mister, you get right back into that brush, a bargain's a bargain and you're not near the tree yet." “But I'se jest—” “Never mind now, you just misfigured a trifle, that's all, and I stay in the open till the tree is reached.”"
- 3 To misrepresent or disguise.
"If M W, at any time seemes to make some slender explication of himselfe in some of these particulars, he soone misfigures againe his owne expression with words of manifest inconsistency therewith: so that the setled judgement of the Author in the Question controverted, must be some where else inquired after, then in his discourse: This I can say of mine own knowledge, that when I was with him, pressing him to know, whither by righteoousnesse of Christ (in his opinion) he meant the righteousnesse of his nature, consisting of inward habits or dispositions of grace and holinesse; or the righteousnesse of his life, consisting of those righteous acts, which he performed in obedience to the Law of God, or whither he included them both, he absolutely denied, that he meant either the one or the other, or both together."
- 4 To disfigure.
"Section 1427: makes it a misdemeanour for anyone not the owner wilfully to injure, misfigure, remove or destroy the work of art, and, similarly Section 1428: provides that the person who wilfully or maliciously cuts, tears, defaces, disfigures, soils, obliterates, breaks or destorys an object of art or curiosity deposited in a public library, gallery, museum, collection, fair or exhibition is punishable by prison or fine, or both."
- 5 To err in the manufacture of an optical surface so that it causes distortions.
"If the flat rim of the center axicon is misfigured in such a way that its best fit plane is not perpendicular to the axis of symmetry of the center axicon ( defined in a least squares sense ) this deviation will […]"
Example
More examples"But you make another mistake — you misfigure dates again — and you've got something more to answer for."
Etymology
From mis- + figure.
More for "misfigure"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.