Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A misplaced or awkward step.
- n. An instance of wrong or improper conduct; a blunder.
- v. To make a mistake.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A wrong or false step.
- n. A mistake in conduct; an incautious or erroneous act.
- To make a false step; stumble.
- To make a mistake; stray.
Wiktionary
- n. a step that is wrong
- n. an error or mistake
- v. to step badly or incorrectly
- v. to make an error or mistake
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A wrong step; an error of conduct.
- v. To take a wrong step; to go astray.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an unintentional but embarrassing blunder
Examples
“I'd say the biggest misstep is Virginia elected Bob McDonnell governor ....”
“For Joe Six-Pack America, such a misstep is no big deal.”
Social Media Obscures Line Between “on the record” and “off the record” : Law is Cool
“When they step into the bell jar of their hotel room Edward and Florence leave all extraneous influences outside, allowing us to microscopically examine the motivations and miscommunications of these two well meaning young people in a controlled atmosphere, in which every misstep is theirs alone and their future happiness might turn on something as spontaneous and irretrievable as a single gesture.”
On Chesil Beach: Summary and book reviews of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.
“You may, for instance, be right about “Open Source Media”, but your relish and glee about a perceived misstep is palpable.”
“I questioned this conventional wisdom, wondering instead if the economy wouldn't drive CIOs away from the cloud, fearful that any near-term misstep could be disastrous.”
“Or perhaps he wasn’t thinking about anything in particular and this misstep is what we can expect from a President whose limitless confidence in his own abilities is founded on a slender base of knowledge and experience.”
“The book’s sole misstep is a beautifully-wrought but on the nose paragraph that articulates:”
“Jalali’s attempt to stay nonchalant in the face of this frustrating half-inch misstep is priceless.”
“The misstep was a half-hearted effort to trim crop subsidies, by limiting direct payments to farmers grossing more than $500,000 a year and redirecting those funds to childhood nutrition programs.”
The Huffington Post: Food and Farming in Obama's First 100 Days
“Unspoken: my so-called misstep is open to interpretation.”
Tom Alderman: There Must Be 50 Ways to Say They're Sorry....
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘misstep’.
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mis-
wrongly; badly; unsuitably
misname, mismanage, misapply, misanthrope, miscalculate, mistake, mistook, misstep, misdirect, misfortune, misadventure, misalign and 22 more...
tomax A mistake in conduct; an incautious or erroneous act. Jan 12, 2010
reesetee That would be quite a misstake. Apr 7, 2008
bilby It's all I can do not to spell this with triple s in the middle. Apr 7, 2008