Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To lead in the wrong direction.
  • transitive verb To give a wrong impression or lead toward a wrong conclusion, especially by intentionally deceiving. synonym: deceive.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To lead or guide wrongly; lead astray; especially, to draw into error: cause to err; delude: as, to mislead an inquirer.
  • To misconduct; misbehave: used reflexively.
  • Synonyms Mislead, Delude. Mislead means to lead wrong, whether with or without design. Delude always, at least figuratively, implies intention to deceive, and that means are used for that purpose. We may be misled through ignorance and in good faith, but we are deluded by false representations. A person may delude himself.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To lead into a wrong way or path; to lead astray; to guide into error; to cause to mistake; to deceive.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb literally To lead astray, in a false direction.
  • verb To deceive by telling lies or otherwise giving a false impression.
  • verb To deceptively trick into something wrong.
  • verb To accidentally or intentionally confuse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb give false or misleading information to
  • verb lead someone in the wrong direction or give someone wrong directions

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mis- +‎ lead

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word mislead.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.