mispronounce
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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mispronounces,
present (3rd person singular)
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mispronounced,
past participle, past
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mispronouncing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mispronouncesimple
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mispronouncessimple
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have mispronouncedperfect
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has mispronouncedperfect
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am mispronouncingprogressive
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are mispronouncingprogressive
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is mispronouncingprogressive
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have been mispronouncingperfect progressive
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has been mispronouncingperfect progressive
Past
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mispronouncedsimple
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had mispronouncedperfect
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was mispronouncingprogressive
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were mispronouncingprogressive
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had been mispronouncingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mispronounce
Explanation
To mispronounce is to say something incorrectly. It can be pretty awkward when you mispronounce someone's name, especially if you know the person well. Some words are easy to mispronounce, like February, realtor, and meteorology, simply because the sounds don't flow gracefully off the tongue. In other cases, non-native English speakers might mispronounce a word because it doesn't sound at all the way it looks — like tongue, for example. In any case, the verb mispronounce combines the prefix mis-, "wrong or bad," and pronounce, "to utter or say."
Vocabulary lists containing mispronounce
Selection Vocabulary 2, Unit 3
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for May 18–May 24, 2024
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noun, nunc (declare)
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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:
Yet audience members would gladly correct any comic who’d assume the restaurant was Mexican, or mispronounce the word “pupusas,” as Battle sheepishly recalled during his own set.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2025
We all stumble over and mispronounce words occasionally.
From Salon ● Mar. 7, 2024
The findings also suggest that when listening to children, adult listeners incorporate expectations of how children commonly mispronounce words, such as "weed" for "read."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2023
And here’s a good one: What happens when you mispronounce a menu term?
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2023
Again, while others had great difficulty in understanding me, I couldn’t hear myself mispronounce words.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
“POV: your friend mispronounces a word once and now it’s a national holiday. Happy #itsgonnabemay Day!,”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2024
For example, in the Sally Bundock video, the "presenter" mispronounces 15 as "fife-teen", as well as oddly pronouncing project as "pro-ject".
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2023
Biden mispronounces Jon Ossoff's name at Georgia rally in latest gaffe President-elect Joe Biden butchered the name of Georgia Democratic Senate hopeful John Ossoff during an election event Tuesday ahead of the crucial runoff races.
From Fox News ● Dec. 16, 2020
From the books' title, there's the young girl who mispronounces "knife" in class because that's how her father sounds it out.
From Salon ● Apr. 7, 2020
Girl is born, girl learns to talk and walk, girl mispronounces words and falls down.
From "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson
He started as a rapper who called himself Shaboozey—the moniker came from a high-school football coach who mispronounced his last name—but no single musical form captured the range of his interests.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
The uniforms are generic camouflage ones easily bought online, while the Ukrainian words are heavily mispronounced and spoken with a strong Russian accent.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2025
In response, I tirelessly corrected people who mispronounced my name or purposely tried to assign me another one.
From Salon ● Feb. 22, 2025
In the first roll call, the professor mispronounced her last name as “CHIP-uh-tee.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2024
She also became an excellent speller of words she mispronounced.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
He changed his surname in the 1970s, he said, because people kept mispronouncing it.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
The name Pelé came from him mispronouncing the name of a player called Bilé.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2022
But even if they were not — if, for example, the person is wholly mispronouncing a word they learned reading — to me, correcting the person is rude.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 16, 2022
It’s not mispronouncing her name, she is just saying Adele with an Essex accent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2022
"Excuse me, Mrs. Olinski," he said, hesitating slightly, mispronouncing her name.
From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg
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.
