Misguided
adjectiveShowing or based on faulty judgement, mistaken reasoning, or misplaced good intentions.
How to spell misguided
9 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce misguided
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does misguided mean?
- adjectiveShowing or based on faulty judgement, mistaken reasoning, or misplaced good intentions.
Misguided in a sentence
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The company wasted a fortune on a misguided marketing campaign.
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His misguided attempt to help only made the situation worse.
Where does misguided come from?
Language of origin: French
This word is built from the verb 'guide' with the prefix 'mis-' meaning 'wrongly' or 'badly'. The root 'guide' came into English in the 1300s from the Old French 'guider', meaning 'to lead or direct', which itself traces back through Germanic roots tied to the idea of knowing the way and showing it to others. The prefix 'mis-' is a very old native English element, inherited from Old English and shared across the Germanic languages, where it consistently carried the sense of something going wrong or being done badly. Combined, the literal idea is 'led the wrong way', and the figurative meaning of holding mistaken beliefs or acting on poor judgement grew naturally from that, becoming common from the 1600s onward. The spelling trap is purely about the silent 'u' inside 'guide', a quirk inherited from the French spelling, since without it the word would be read with a soft 'g'.
How the word is built
- mis- (wrongly, badly)
- guide (to lead or direct)
- -ed (adjective/past-participle suffix)
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