misjudge
/mɪsˈdʒʌdʒ
/verb [with object]
1Form a wrong opinion or conclusion about: I’ve misjudged Doris—she hasn’t told anyone...
- Public opinion misjudged the two most important wars fought by this country in the last century.
- Putting all this together, I concluded that I've misjudged them.
- Too many liberal and progressive activists misjudged the recall revolt and wound up on the wrong side of a populist tsunami.
1.1Make an incorrect estimation or assessment of: the horse misjudged the fence and Mrs Weaver was thrown off...
- I should perhaps mention, from my own experience, that even an experienced novelist can seriously misjudge the length of a novel.
- Seriously misjudging the popular mood in Spain, Napoleon, with a mixture of intrigue and brute force, sought to remove the Bourbons and replace them with one of his brothers.
- Halfway down, he realised he had seriously misjudged the time.
Synonyms
get the wrong idea about, get wrong, get the wrong end of the stick about, judge incorrectly, jump to the wrong conclusion about, estimate wrongly;
overestimate, underestimate, overvalue, undervalue, underrate, be wrong about, miscalculate, misconstrue, misread, misapprehend;
wrong, do someone an injustice, belittle
Derivatives
misjudgement
/ (also misjudgment) noun ...- Not a single government minister has resigned or been sacked for the mistakes made, the misjudgments taken, and the false prospectus on which we were taken to war.
- In the days when pregnancy was the greatest fear and information was scarce it was forgivable that individuals made mistakes and misjudgments, but today that should not be the case and the risks involved are so much greater.
- Based entirely on anonymous sources, the article chronicles an unrelieved series of misjudgments, errors and failures.