Misrelate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To convey information inaccurately or incorrectly; to confuse the details or relationships between facts or events; to provide a misleading account of something
2. To describe or explain something in a way that is not correct; to incorrectly connect or associate ideas or events; to present a distorted version of information
3. To report or recount facts erroneously; to misunderstand or misrepresent the links between pieces of information; to communicate an erroneous relationship among elements or happenings

Etymology: "Misrelate" is a plain compound: the prefix "mis-", meaning wrongly or badly, attached to "relate." The base verb "relate" comes into English from Latin "relatus," the past participle of "referre," which means to bring back or carry back, and its sense of telling a story grew out of the idea of bringing an account back to a listener. Adding "mis-" simply reverses the job: where relating a story conveys it faithfully, misrelating conveys it wrongly. The prefix "mis-" is an old English element, used in words like "misdeed" and "mislead," and it has been productive for centuries, so forming a new verb like this one required no special invention. The compound follows the same pattern as "misreport" or "misstate," and its meaning follows directly from its parts.

Synonyms: misrepresent, miscommunicate, misreport, misstate, misdescribe

Antonyms: relate, report, communicate, describe, state