mislead
Americanverb (used with object)
-
misleads,
present (3rd person singular)
-
misled,
past participle, past
-
misleading
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
misleads,
present (3rd person singular)
-
misled,
past participle, past
-
misleading
present participle
verb
-
to give false or misleading information to
-
to lead or guide in the wrong direction
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
misleadsimple
-
misleadssimple
-
have misledperfect
-
has misledperfect
-
am misleadingprogressive
-
are misleadingprogressive
-
is misleadingprogressive
-
have been misleadingperfect progressive
-
has been misleadingperfect progressive
Past
-
misledsimple
-
had misledperfect
-
was misleadingprogressive
-
were misleadingprogressive
-
had been misleadingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mislead
before 1050; Middle English misleden, Old English mislǣdan. See mis- 1, lead 1
Explanation
Use the verb mislead to describe what you're doing when you don't tell the whole truth, or when you let someone believe something false. You mislead someone when you point them in the wrong direction, literally or metaphorically. If you let your cousin think an expensive gift is from you when you actually just sent her a card, you are misleading her. And if you give a tourist directions away from the chain restaurant he's looking for, you are misleading him. Finally, if you think this doesn't really count as lying, you're misleading yourself.
Vocabulary lists containing mislead
Fake It 'Til You Make It: Synonyms for "False"
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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.
See Examples For:
"There's a long history of strategies to mislead anybody who might be trying to harm the president."
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, accusing it of using outdated studies to mislead consumers about the comparative weight-loss effectiveness of its GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound against Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
“I mean, it rents fine—I don’t want to mislead you. But it certainly could have been better if we had a bigger great room.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
"Without this, we mislead decision makers and potentially lose public trust in our ability to tackle climate change."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2026
This cultural barrier at Torres Strait is astonishing only because we may mislead ourselves into picturing a full-fledged New Guinea society with intensive agriculture and pigs 10 miles off the Australian coast.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
One major reason is fraud, where one party intentionally misleads the other before the agreement is signed, causing the other party to enter the contract based on false information.
From MarketWatch ● May 20, 2026
The Council of Science Editors’ recommendations on publication ethics say ghost authorship is “ethically unacceptable” because it misleads readers about potential conflicts of interest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
Elon Musk, who founded xAI, opposes OpenAI’s restructuring plan because he believes it veers away from the company’s founding principles and misleads investors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2025
The ASA is cracking down on online ads like these, saying their structure misleads customers.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2024
His poetry is a stray vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within him, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but is often a wildfire that misleads him.
From Life of Robert Burns by Thomas Carlyle
Pirro’s team blamed the Interior Department for the flub, saying it had misled prosecutors about the pool.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
It is possible that Hearn could request an investigation into whether the grand jury was misled.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Sturgeon has said she is innocent of any wrongdoing and that she was "deceived, misled and betrayed" by Murrell.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
"It is a stain on our history. Mothers, many young, vulnerable and without support were coerced, bullied or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them."
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
Even a visitor to the Fertile Crescent in 9500 B.C. rather than in 8500 B.C. could have been misled into supposing the Fertile Crescent permanently unsuitable for food production.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
In March, the jury found Meta violated the state's Unfair Practices Act by misleading consumers about the safety of its products for children.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
Fifa said it was a "false and misleading" claim and that a decision on where to hold the final, with the tournament also hosted by Spain and Portugal, will be made "in due course".
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
At one point, Pirro accused Burgum of misleading Trump, one of the people said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
“While the District’s letter purports to recite other ‘issues of concern,’ it does so in an incomplete and misleading manner — as we set forth in our response to the District.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
Now, you might find this title silly and even a bit misleading, for what famous poet writes poems to mice?
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
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.
