misprision.

1. An incorrect understanding or interpretation of something, especially in literary or formal discussion.

2. Concealing another person's serious crime, with failure to report it, without having participated in the crime.

3. Neglecting an official responsibility or performing it improperly, in older or specialist legal usage.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a misprision of the text
• critical misprision
• an act of misprision

On the page

The critic's misprision turns the speaker's hesitation into outright cowardice.

A single misprision of the final line changes the poem's argument.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary / elevated prose. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Countable or uncountable by context; countable singular misprision; plural misprisions. Commonness: rare (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Full dictionary entry directly read. Misunderstanding/misinterpretation; neglect or wrong performance of official duty; concealment of treason/felony by a nonparticipant; sedition; separate contempt/scorn entry. Legal section also records clerical error and crime concealment with failure to report. Three retained scopes; overflow and jurisdiction variation flagged. Individual usefulness checked for a precise literary, narrative, dialogue or critical function. Definitions and examples are original; commonness is an editorial estimate. Mood and intensity apply only to inherent qualities of the specific sense. Writing functions: literary misreading, distinguishing errors of interpretation from legal concealment.