Mishearer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Someone who hears spoken words incorrectly and therefore takes them to mean something other than what was intended
2. A person who misperceives speech through faulty hearing or inattention, catching the wrong words or sounds
3. One whose hearing of what is said goes astray, leading them to understand a message differently than the speaker meant

Etymology: "Mishearer" is a simple formation: the verb "mishear," meaning to hear or catch wrongly, with the agent suffix "-er" attached to name the person who does the mishearing. English has long combined "mis-" with verbs of perception and speech, so "mishear" sits alongside "misread," "misunderstand," and "mislead," and "-er" turns the action into a person or thing that performs it. The word is therefore a transparent compound, with no borrowing from another language and no surprising shift in meaning, so its sense can be read straight from its parts.