Miscounted

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The result of inaccurately calculating a quantity is referred to, which also includes failing to account for items or errors
2. An instance of tallying items incorrectly occurs when the total is either overrepresented or underrepresented
3. A situation arises when a number of items is wrongly assessed, leading to a misrepresentation of the actual quantity

Etymology: "Miscounted" is the past tense and past participle of "miscount", which is a simple compound: the prefix "mis-", meaning wrongly or badly, attached to "count". The verb "count" came into English from Old French "conter" and ultimately from Latin "computare", meaning to reckon together, which explains the sense of adding things up. Its earlier English form, "miscounten", combined "mis-" with that same verb to mean reckoning wrongly. The prefix "mis-" is old in English and was productive throughout the Middle English period, so "miscount" belongs to a large family of similar formations such as "misread", "mistake" and "misjudge". Because the base verb is so ordinary, the formation is transparent: the word tells you directly what happened, with no metaphor or shift in meaning to unpick.

Synonyms: miscalculated, misestimated

Antonyms: accurately counted