Miscopying

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The act of reproducing written material inaccurately, leading to errors or alterations from the original text
2. The process of making an incorrect reproduction of a document, resulting in deviations from the source material
3. The occurrence of duplicating information in a manner that introduces mistakes or changes compared to the initial version

Etymology: "Miscopying" is the present participle and gerund of "miscopy", a verb formed by adding the prefix "mis-", meaning wrongly or badly, to "copy". The prefix is an English one that has been attached to native and borrowed verbs for centuries, so "miscopy" follows the same pattern as "misread" or "misjudge": a plain act of copying done wrongly. The base "copy" carries the older history. It came into English from Latin "copia", meaning abundance or plenty, which in medieval Latin also came to mean a transcript or a reproduced text. That sense of multiplying an original is why the word fits so neatly with the errors that creep into hand-copied manuscripts, where each new scribe could introduce a slip that was then passed on to every later copy.

Synonyms: miswriting, transcription error, copying error

Antonyms: accurate copying, correct transcription