miss the point

Idioms  

1. Overlook or fail to understand the essential or important part of something, as in Chris missed the point of Gwen's complaint, thinking she was opposed to the date of the next meeting. This expression employs point in the sense of “the salient portion,” a usage dating from the late 1300s.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

miss the point

But to fixate on the juicy details of this wild workplace lawsuit is to miss the point, especially when we have only one side of the story.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

But don’t miss the point of caring so wholly in the first place — to have a human experience on this dense, fleshy plane.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Reducing the modern shift to politics alone would miss the point.

From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026

Both statements can be technically accurate and still miss the point.

From MarketWatch ● May 27, 2026

Nowadays, we would call this plagiarism, but that would be entirely to miss the point.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

• confuse
• miscalculate
• misconstrue
• misinterpret
• misjudge
• misread