Misreply

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To reply inappropriately.

    "While almost any conversational turn by addressee can serve as the reference turn for a connective-initial turn by a self-selecting participant, a preceding turn by Alter was used in a more restricted set of circumstances, such as: […] If Alter has misreplied, in Ego's estimation, either through misunderstanding or contradiction, to Ego's preceding turn, or if he has emphasized the wrong aspect or presupposition of Ego's turn;"

Example

More examples

"While almost any conversational turn by addressee can serve as the reference turn for a connective-initial turn by a self-selecting participant, a preceding turn by Alter was used in a more restricted set of circumstances, such as: […] If Alter has misreplied, in Ego's estimation, either through misunderstanding or contradiction, to Ego's preceding turn, or if he has emphasized the wrong aspect or presupposition of Ego's turn;"

Etymology

From mis- + reply.

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