Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

misshape

American  
[mis-sheyp, mish-] / mɪsˈʃeɪp, mɪʃ- /

verb (used with object)

misshaped, misshaped, misshapen, misshaping
  1. to shape badly or wrongly; deform.


misshape British  

verb

  1. to shape badly; deform

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. something that is badly shaped

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of misshape

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at mis- 1, shape

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:

Sure, I am OK to sweat under bright lights and have a heavy-mic pack permanently misshape the waistband of a skirt, but, reader, only if it’s worth it.

From The Guardian Feb. 24, 2019

A dream sequence late in the script is almost certainly a structural bungle, and passages in which characters state their claims too blatantly misshape individual scenes.

From New York Times Jul. 13, 2014

“No no no!” she teased her son, watching him misshape a dumpling.

From Washington Post

He pays particular attention to the intricacies of political institutions and how they shape and misshape policies.

From Time Magazine Archive

Moccasins just broadened her feet healthily, while she did not misshape them by running with the dogs in her childhood.'

From The Son of the Wolf by Jack London

But if you’re game for an emerging filmmaking talent’s stingingly uncanny foretelling, “The Pink Cloud” is an arresting examination of what it can look like when existence is misshaped into a compromised destiny.

From Los Angeles Times Jan. 20, 2022

Verdon, like Fosse, grew up dancing: As a child she had rickets, which misshaped her legs.

From Slate Apr. 8, 2019

Over time, it was power combined with profound insecurity that misshaped him.

From New York Times Mar. 29, 2017

Three genes—PADI3, TGM3, and TCHH—direct the process that causes the misshaped strands, researchers report this month in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

From Science Magazine Nov. 22, 2016

He had a misshaped nose, caused by an accident in boyhood, and a sarcastic twinkle oftentimes in his eyes, which changed the expression of his whole face.

From Home Life of Great Authors by Hattie Tyng Griswold

This could mean the misshapen duo of “Smiling Friends,” or a very live-action Eric Andre.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 27, 2026

Those "knobbly and misshapen potatoes" however are absolutely fine to eat, she said.

From BBC Aug. 11, 2026

What rare fruit survived to maturity on these little, addled trees was misshapen, acrid, and stubbornly green on one end; in short, it tasted terrible.

From Slate Apr. 20, 2026

But it also puts a target on his splotchy, misshapen head, especially when Garbinger senses in his nemesis an exploitable biofuel.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 30, 2025

Next to him, a huge lump of a man with a leg in a steel brace, a misshapen head, and a wild brown beard, fire flickering through his whiskers.

From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan

Strangers interlope for a moment, and change destinies, coming out for a day, from nothing, and going to nowhere, but marring and misshaping everything.

From Bart Ridgeley A Story of Northern Ohio by A. G. Riddle

But while he was living thus quietly in Dapitan, events that were to determine his fate were misshaping themselves in Manila.

From The Social Cancer by Charles E. Derbyshire

Her Hand was to her bosom; she breathed hard, and presently, while he stared, words misshaping themselves upon his abashed lips she smiled!

From Those Who Smiled And Eleven Other Stories by Perceval Gibbon

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training