Misspoken

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Expressed incorrectly or said in error, involving communication that was inaccurately conveyed or mistakenly uttered
2. Formed by making a verbal mistake or error during speech, indicating that the spoken words were not correctly articulated or intended
3. Characterized by statements or phrases delivered mistakenly, highlighting errors in how something was verbally expressed or pronounced

Etymology: The verb "misspeak" is older than its modern sense suggests. Its Old English ancestor, "missprecan," meant "to murmur" or to speak in a low, indistinct way rather than to say something wrong. The "mis-" prefix, which in Old English could mean "wrongly" or "amiss," was attached to a verb for speaking, and over the centuries the error sense gradually took over from the murmuring one. Middle English spellings such as "misspeken" and "mysspeken" show the word moving through the medieval period, still built from the same two parts: "mis-" and "speak." By the time it reached modern English, it had settled into the meaning of uttering something incorrectly or unintentionally. "Misspoken" is simply the past participle of "misspeak," used here as an adjective to describe a statement that was said by mistake. The word therefore carries the same history as its verb, with the wrongly-said sense the only one that survives today.

Synonyms: misstated, mispronounced, misarticulated, misexpressed, erroneous

Antonyms: correct, accurate, articulate, precise, clear