Misinformation

How to spell misinformation

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce misinformation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does misinformation mean?

1. nounFalse or inaccurate information, especially when spread without intent to deceive.

Misinformation in a sentence

• The health agency issued a correction to counter the misinformation circulating online.

• A lot of misinformation about the new tax rules confused small business owners.

Where does misinformation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'inform', which descends from the Latin verb informare, literally 'to give shape to' or 'to form within', from the prefix in- 'into' and forma 'shape, form'. By the time it reached English through Old French in the late Middle Ages, informare had taken on the figurative sense of shaping the mind by giving it knowledge, which is how 'inform' came to mean 'to tell'. The native English prefix 'mis-', meaning 'wrongly' or 'badly', was attached to the noun 'information' to produce 'misinformation', recorded from around the late 1500s, with the straightforward meaning of false or inaccurate information. A useful spelling note: the word stacks two prefixes, mis- and in-, so the awkward 'sin' sequence in the middle (mi-SIN-formation) is simply mis + in meeting, not a doubled letter or anything irregular. Modern usage often distinguishes it from 'disinformation', where dis- signals that the falsehood is spread deliberately.

How the word is built

• mis- (wrong, badly)
• in- (into)
• form (shape, from Latin forma)
• -ation (noun of action)