Misspelled

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Written or typed incorrectly with errors in spelling; to make a mistake when forming the letters of a word; an error in the standard arrangement of characters in a word
2. Containing inaccuracies in letter arrangement that deviate from the accepted form; to incorrectly reproduce the letters of a word; a failure to conform to proper spelling norms
3. Marked by incorrect sequencing or substitution of letters in a word; the act of failing to spell a word according to standard rules; a deviation from correct orthographic representation

Etymology: "Misspelled" is the past tense and past participle of "misspell," so its story is really the story of the prefix "mis-" joined to the verb "spell." The prefix descends from a Proto-Germanic root meaning something like "amiss" or "wrongly," which passed through Old English as "mis-" and went on to form many English compounds such as "mistake" and "misunderstand." It attached to "spell" to make a verb meaning to write letters wrongly. The verb "spell" has a more surprising past. Its ancestor meant a story or discourse, not letters at all: Old English "spel" could mean a narrative or a speech, and the sense of letters arranged to form words developed later. The shift came from the idea of reciting or telling something in sequence, so that a "spell" of words was a string of them, and eventually a string of letters. The notion of a magical charm also belongs to this family of meanings, since a spoken formula could be a kind of tale recited with power.

Synonyms: mispelled, incorrectly spelled, erroneous

Antonyms: correctly spelled, accurate