mishap
Americannoun
noun
-
an unfortunate accident
-
bad luck
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mishap
Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at mis- 1, hap 1
Explanation
Don’t cry over spilled milk, it is just a minor mishap — a misfortune. If the surgeon operates on the wrong leg when you go in for knee surgery? Now, that’s a mishap to get upset about. You might assume that hap is short for happening, but it is actually an Old Norse word for "luck." So with mis ("bad") in front of it, it literally means “bad luck.” Mishaps can be accidents of great consequence or minimal consequence. People often say that an event went off “without a mishap,” meaning that it went smoothly. Hopefully this will be the case if you ever get knee surgery.
Vocabulary lists containing mishap
Power Prefix: mis-
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 3
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ACT Vocabulary List
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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:
The president later blamed a faulty teleprompter glitch for the mishap.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
There was a mishap Sunday evening on a Disneyland log flume ride that led to a 13-year-old being transported to a hospital, according to Disney Resort officials.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026
However, Clear Street analyst Greg Pendy sees the Blue Origin mishap as an opportunity for Rocket Lab to seize market share.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026
The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it is requiring Blue Origin to conduct a "mishap investigation" after the space company's New Glenn rocket failed to deliver a communications satellite into the correct orbit.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
There is only one minor mishap of sorts, one unexpected occurrence.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
There are measures the company has adopted over the years to bolster its platform against myriad vulnerabilities: adopting cybersecurity programs to preempt automated bot accounts, and expanding protections for music festival mishaps.
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2026
Here are a few other recent cases of missing Oscars, and the occasional mishaps that led to their recovery.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
Recent improvements in AI technologies have made visual fakes easier to create and more convincing, with once-telltale mishaps such as six-fingered hands increasingly less common.
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
Embassy staff hostages nearly 46 years ago—had failed dramatically after a series of mishaps, punctuated by a fiery crash at a desert staging area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 5, 2026
The names of the dead were as important as the names of the living, as every loss from disease and suicide—and the other mishaps labeled as such for accounting purposes—needed to be justified to employers.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
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.
