Mistake
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An error.
"There were too many mistakes in the test, that unfortunately you failed."
- 2 a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention wordnet
- 3 A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.
- 4 an understanding of something that is not correct wordnet
- 5 part of a statement that is not correct wordnet
- 1 To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another. transitive
"Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar."
- 2 to make a mistake or be incorrect wordnet
- 3 To misunderstand (someone). obsolete, transitive
"Miſtake me not, my Lord, ’tis not my meaning / To raze one Title of your Honour out."
- 4 identify incorrectly wordnet
- 5 To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong. intransitive, obsolete
"Impoſe me to what penance your inuention / Can lay vpon my ſinne, yet ſinn’d I not / But in miſtaking."
Show 1 more definition
- 6 To take or choose wrongly. obsolete, rare
"The better act of purposes mistook / Is to mistake again; though indirect, / Yet indirection thereby grows direct,"
Example
More examples"If you see a mistake, then please correct it."
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.
Related phrases
More for "mistake"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.