misfit
Americanverb (used with or without object)
noun
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misfits
plural
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something that fits badly, such as a garment that is too large or too small.
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a person who is not suited or is unable to adjust to the circumstances of a particular situation.
She was a misfit in that job after her big promotion.
noun
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a person not suited in behaviour or attitude to a particular social environment
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something that does not fit or fits badly
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of misfit
Explanation
A person who just can't seem to fit in, no matter how hard they try, is called a misfit. If all of your friends are great dancers, but you are awkward and uncoordinated with no sense of rhythm, you might feel like a misfit. Often, people who are misfits as kids eventually find other misfits to be friends with: suddenly, because they've found a group that accepts them and makes them feel comfortable; they're not misfits anymore. In the early nineteenth century, the word misfit meant "a garment that fits badly," but by the end of the 1800s it had come to primarily mean "outcast" or "oddball." The fit in both cases is wrong, thus the prefix mis-, or "wrong."
Vocabulary lists containing misfit
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: mis-
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mis-
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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:
So, aptly, does Gail Honeyman’s creation Eleanor Oliphant, a social misfit with a traumatic past.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
The 41-year-old royal misfit has long struggled with the monarchy's strictures, shaking off the angry young man and "playboy prince" tags only to find himself at loggerheads with his closest relatives.
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
In these final days on the campaign trail, Massie's events have seemed a bit like a collection of misfit toys.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
And it’s natural to be upset at an author for poisoning the once-beautiful misfit haven she created.
From Salon ● Apr. 2, 2026
“It is illogical to say he is a misfit just because he chooses to ride a different animal, provided he can carry out his cowboy duties.”
From "Fish in a Tree" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
The one who turned a cast of footballing misfits into an all-conquering force.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
The klan was a handful of misfits who screwed up everything they tried to do.
From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2026
Here, “Tony” is in its element as Johnson crafts the intimidating yet irresistible camaraderie of a kitchen, and all of the misfits who work inside it.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
Mr. Paré-Poupart is in his element when describing the men with whom he’s worked, misfits all yet high-functioning pros in the mucky métier they’ve chosen for themselves.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Alas, this gaggle of uncoordinated misfits was rounded up each week and made to play some sort of sport against each other.
From "Ugly" by Robert Hoge
Director Guillermo del Toro called him "one of the patron saints of all misfitted, weird, maladjusted, wonderful, miraculous oddities".
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2023
Richmond’s mayor got busy hiring cranes, history birthed another amalgam, and the statues have wound up pared from six to a misfitted two: Ashe and Robert E. Lee.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2020
The nation may be misfitted with its laws, and need to change them: some particular corn law may hurt all industry, and it may be worth a thousand administrative blunders to get rid of it.
From The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot
I assure you, I am worse misfitted than is Master Yardstick yonder in those Falstaffian hose.
From To Have and to Hold by Mary Johnston
Virginia is at once the most thorough and the most pathetic picture extant of the American woman as Victorianism conceived and shaped and misfitted her.
From Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) by Carl Van Doren
Bras have been misfitting for years; suppliers failing to approximate women’s actual shapes.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 26, 2018
Suddenly, all the misfitting parts of me came into an orderly pattern, and there wasn’t anything to lose by following it.
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2014
When a two-suiter faces a misfitting hand, it is bad news for that side.
From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2014
Through the body of their Freudian existence, O'Neill has rammed the misfitting dramatic skeleton of the Greek trilogy, Oresteia.
From Time Magazine Archive
The difficulty wasn’t dissipated by his having taken a high tone about it; it pinched him from morning till night, it hurt him like a misfitting shoe.
From Lady Barbarina The Siege of London, An International Episode and Other Tales by Henry James
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
