mispronounce
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
mispronouncesimple
-
mispronouncessimple
-
have mispronouncedperfect
-
has mispronouncedperfect
-
am mispronouncingprogressive
-
are mispronouncingprogressive
-
is mispronouncingprogressive
-
have been mispronouncingperfect progressive
-
has been mispronouncingperfect progressive
Past
-
mispronouncedsimple
-
had mispronouncedperfect
-
was mispronouncingprogressive
-
were mispronouncingprogressive
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for May 18–May 24, 2024
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
noun, nunc (declare)
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
From the back of the crowded Grocery Outlet parking lot, David Swayne heard a pastor he didn’t know mispronounce his sister’s name.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2026
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
On Tuesday, Mayhew didn’t dive into salary specifics — or mispronounce Brandon as “Braden,” for that matter — but that comment likely isn’t made if Mayhew was optimistic about signing Scherff to a new contract.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 11, 2022
It was a short list, but still I managed to mispronounce IBM and assign the wrong gender to both the floor waxer and the typewriter.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
Some seek to convey authenticity, if occasionally ham-fistedly; one influencer mispronounces Steyer’s last name.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
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
The planet — which he mispronounces as “Arrth” — is home to “elegant, amiable mammals” with “a deep faith in jergundery, though not devoid of ambifribbis,” the alien tells the delegates.
From New York Times ● Aug. 11, 2021
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
Girl is born, girl learns to talk and walk, girl mispronounces words and falls down.
From "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson
The former governor repeatedly mispronounced Mr. Mamdani’s name during the campaign—enough so that his opposition made content out of it that went viral.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
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
My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Ms Hindmarch added that Celtic languages could sometimes be used sloppily, citing the blunder by Fourth Wing author Rebecca Yarros, where she was forced to apologise after using Scottish Gaelic names but mispronouncing them.
From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2025
He changed his surname in the 1970s, he said, because people kept mispronouncing it.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
First, he was lectured by a reporter for mispronouncing “Iran,” then asked how, as a Black man, he reconciles representing the United States amid the Black Lives Matter movement.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2022
It’s not mispronouncing her name, she is just saying Adele with an Essex accent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2022
It sure sounded like he was mispronouncing lady but we’d got told to ignore it.
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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.
