Meanings
- uncountabledisarray; disorder; confusion
Then uproar wild and misarray/ Marr'd the fair form of festal day.
1810, Walter Scott, “Canto V. The Combat.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, stanza XXVII, page 2313 more examples
If need be, madam, sweep the room But leave my desk in misarray: So even in my den at Doom If need be, madam, sweep the room And gather me with but a broom.
1946, Catholic World, volume 163But for me, even worse than the stilted dialogue, the stagy direction and theatrically artificial “acting”, were the totally disconcerting jump cuts between the studio scenes – artfully misdirected by Anthony Kimmins against an incredible misarray of outrageously phoney backdrops — and the location footage, into which a lot of money was obviously poured on hordes of costumed extras.
2013, John Howard Reid, History in Movies Hollywood StyleShe thanked Thyruid and rubbed her hair free from the excess water, leaving her head in a twisted, tousled misarray.
2017, William Flewelling, Inn-By-The-Bye Stories
Origin
From mis- + array. Compare Middle English misarraien (“to disorder”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
misarray. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misarray
“misarray.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misarray. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “misarray,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misarray.
Source: misarray on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.