Misillustrated

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Depicted incorrectly or with errors in illustration; represented inaccurately in images or drawings; portrayed in a misleading or flawed manner visually
2. Shown with mistakes or false features in artwork; illustrated in a way that conveys the wrong appearance or details; presented with erroneous figures or sketches
3. Visually conveyed in an improper or mistaken fashion; captured inaccurately by a picture or diagram; drawn or depicted with incorrect or misleading elements

Etymology: "Misillustrated" is simply "mis-" attached to "illustrated," the past participle of "illustrate." The prefix "mis-" comes from Old English and means "wrongly" or "badly," as in "misspelled" or "misjudged." "Illustrate" traces back through Middle English and Old French to the Latin "illustrare," meaning "to light up" or "to make clear," built from "in-" and "lustrare," "to make bright." So the older sense of illustrating something was to shed light on it, and only later did it come to mean adding pictures to a text. The adjective and verb "misillustrated" therefore describe a book, map, or diagram whose pictures are inaccurate or whose drawings fail to match the words they accompany. The word is a transparent formation, and its first recorded uses are later than those of the base word, which is typical of prefixed words built on existing verbs.

Synonyms: misdepicted, misrepresented, misshown, misportrayed, incorrectly illustrated

Antonyms: correctly illustrated, accurately depicted, properly shown, faithfully represented, well illustrated