mistake
pronunciation
How to pronounce mistake in British English:
UK [mɪˈsteɪk]
How to pronounce mistake in American English:
US [mɪˈsteɪk]
-
- Noun:
- a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention
- an understanding of something that is not correct
- part of a statement that is not correct
-
- Verb:
- identify incorrectly
- to make a mistake or be incorrect
Word Origin
- mistake
- mistake: [13] Mistake originally meant literally ‘take in error, take the wrong thing’. It was borrowed from Old Norse mistaka, a compound verb formed from the prefix mis- ‘wrongly’ and taka ‘take’. This sense survived in English for some time (‘to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans … before they be but half drunk of’, Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair 1614), but gradually through the late Middle English period the notion of ‘error’ came to the fore (it was already present in the Old Norse verb, which was used reflexively for ‘go wrong’, and was probably reinforced by Old French mesprendre, literally ‘take wrongly’, which was also used for ‘err’).The noun use, ‘error’, emerged in the 17th century.=> take
- mistake (v.)
- early 14c., "to commit an offense;" late 14c., "to misunderstand, misinterpret," from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse mistaka "take in error, miscarry," from mis- "wrongly" (see mis- (1)) + taka "take" (see take (v.)). Related: Mistook; mistaking.
- mistake (n.)
- 1630s, from mistake (v.). Meaning "unintended pregnancy" is from 1957.
Example
- 1. What is the biggest mistake that young entrepreneurs make ?
- 2. And I made my first major mistake .
- 3. And that would be a huge mistake .
- 4. He thinks that 's a mistake . "
- 5. Make no mistake , there have been changes .