Disinformed

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Being misled by false information encompasses not only a lack of accurate data but also the resultant misguided understanding and opinions
2. The state of having received incorrect or misleading information indicates a gap in knowledge that leads to erroneous beliefs
3. Experiencing a deficiency in truthfulness in the information one possesses results in confusion and potentially flawed decisions

Etymology: "Disinformed" is a past form of the verb "disinform," which was back-formed from "disinformation." That noun was itself built in English from "dis-" added to "information," so the verb arrived later, as speakers worked backward from the noun to create a verb for the action it named. The prefix "dis-" carries the sense of reversal or wrongness, so to disinform someone is to give them false information on purpose, and "disinformed" describes a person who has been misled in that way. The base word "inform" comes from Latin "informare," meaning to shape or give form to something, and in English it came to mean giving knowledge or telling someone facts. Adding "dis-" turns that sense of supplying knowledge into supplying its opposite. The result is a word whose structure is transparent: the prefix reverses the meaning of a familiar root.

Synonyms: misinformed, misled

Antonyms: informed, enlightened