misfit
Americanverb (used with or without object)
noun
-
something that fits badly, such as a garment that is too large or too small.
-
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
-
a person not suited in behaviour or attitude to a particular social environment
-
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:
"It became the perfect medium to express this feeling of being a misfit," she says.
From BBC ● May 15, 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
There is just enough character in the comedy to create stakes in the narrative; its misfit energy has fueled the screen’s bands of outsiders throughout the years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026
Anyone who’s ever felt like an oddball or unappreciated genius will identify with the misfit Mitchells and their pet Monchi, who appears to be more goblin than dog.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2025
He already felt like enough of a misfit without trying to explain his new undead minion.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
“They are a group of misfits who band together to learn how to control the things that make them different and learn to accept and love themselves,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
And more often than not, they were misfits on their former teams.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 15, 2026
The topical, darkly funny, whip-smart series from Eric Kripke follows a band of vigilante misfits who fight to expose the all-powerful, corrupt conglomerate Vought International and its stable of villainous superheroes.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026
A team of misfits at Ford is on a quest to beat China at EVs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Since we didn’t have a mother at home, Junior and I were the misfits in our community.
From "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah
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
Old Hicks fitted, or rather misfitted, him in a faded blue tailed coat and a topper, Jarvis looked like an Otto Gushing cartoon of Apollo in the attire, but he never once thought of that.
From Bambi by Cooke, Marjorie Benton
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 Bagehot, Walter
His life, his art, were sadly misfitted with masks—though Nietzsche says: "All that is profound loves the mask"; and the symbolism of the Orient completed the disintegration of his baffling personality.
From Ivory Apes and Peacocks by Huneker, James
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
I mean to alter my face as you do your misfitting garments,—take in on one side and let out on the other.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 by Various
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.
