misquote
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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misquotes,
present (3rd person singular)
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misquoted,
past participle, past
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misquoting
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
misquotesimple
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misquotessimple
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have misquotedperfect
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has misquotedperfect
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am misquotingprogressive
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are misquotingprogressive
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is misquotingprogressive
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have been misquotingperfect progressive
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has been misquotingperfect progressive
Past
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misquotedsimple
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had misquotedperfect
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was misquotingprogressive
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were misquotingprogressive
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had been misquotingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of misquote
Explanation
To misquote someone is to incorrectly repeat the words they've said. It's unethical for a journalist to deliberately misquote the subject of an interview. It's extremely common for people to misquote famous figures like Gandhi (who never literally said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world") and Machiavelli (who didn't exactly say, "The ends justify the means"). These examples can also be called misquotes. As with many words, Shakespeare is credited with being the first to use this combination of mis-, "wrong," and quote, "repeat or copy out exact words."
Vocabulary lists containing misquote
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:
Ziegler did not merely misquote Moore; she inverted its holding to endorse the very idea it rejected.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2025
At the Ivors, I accidentally misquote this back to him as "an unassailable guitar record".
From BBC ● May 22, 2025
And, to misquote a well-known Monty Python line, “no one ever expects a pandemic.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 16, 2024
Green doubled down, asserting that he went back and confirmed the misquote himself.
From Salon ● Feb. 6, 2024
Facts are made in the image not of people, who misremember, misquote and misrepresent, but of books, immutable but mobile.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
But its existence also means there’s no excuses for misattribution or misquotes, which is surely part of its at least temporary revival.
From Salon ● Mar. 10, 2026
Listed between celebrity misquotes and political mishaps was a trend for an oversized cat along with an orangutan who got free from a zoo and wreaked havoc.
From The Verge ● Jan. 30, 2019
Rep. Davis even misquotes it as: “Nothing in this bill shall allow insurance companies to deny anyone coverage for preexisting conditions.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2018
It includes misquotes of Muslim figures of authority and elisions of fact that portray the Muslim community as dogmatic and unknowable.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 18, 2018
He relies upon von Holst instead of the documents, then misquotes him on a point of essential chronology, and from unwarranted assumptions and erroneous and incomplete data draws unreliable conclusions.
From Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850 by Nathaniel W. (Nathaniel Wright) Stephenson
His opinion repeatedly misquoted key pieces of evidence to accuse officials of saying things that they did not.
From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2025
His claim was debunked by several fact-checkers who said he had misquoted the former prime minister.
From BBC ● May 7, 2024
They misquoted him to his face, misrepresented his work, and spouted cocksure inanities showing with every word that, scientifically speaking, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2024
But Green denied doing so, claiming that the article misquoted him.
From Salon ● Feb. 6, 2024
Assuming that Snyder misspoke or was misquoted and meant to say that one homeless person died every forty-five seconds, that’s still 701,000 dead homeless people every year—roughly one-third of all deaths in the United States.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
BBC presenter Matt Chorley has apologised for misquoting Nigel Farage during an interview about the murder of Henry Nowak.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
“I would hope that they would continue to recognize the primary intent of the paper and be very meticulous about avoiding misquoting or mischaracterizing what that paper is for.”
From Scientific American ● Oct. 16, 2023
Artificial intelligence accused of misquoting and defaming people online could face litigation as a result of the false information it outputs, legal experts warn.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 13, 2023
Ivanka has struggled to get quotes right on Twitter, previously posting a Chinese proverb that was not Chinese and misquoting Albert Einstein.
From Salon ● Nov. 22, 2019
When he was done misquoting the poem on the Statue of Liberty, the youngest, Fifi, asked if she could blow out the candle, and Mami said only after everyone had made a wish.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
