misattend

present singular third person misattends · participle present misattending · participle past misattended · past misattended

1. intransitiveTo misunderstand something; to disregard or fail to pay attention.

   From the bottom-up view, the reader with attention deficits may misattend to the salient features of words.

   1995, Michael P. French, Ann Polzer Landretti, Attention Deficit and Reading Instruction, page 15

   4 more examples

   I would have cabled you to withdraw it from the Century, but I didn't, for I was sure I could depend upon Gilder's declining it. If he hasn't done it, please take it away from him and charge him with being drunk and misattending to his duties.

   1969, Mark Twain, Henry Huttleston Rogers, Lewis Gaston Leary, Mark Twain's Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers

   They ſhall recover the miſattended vvords of Chriſt to the ſincerity of their true ſenſe from manifold contradictions, and ſhall open them vvith the key of charity.

   1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], chapter XXII, in The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, book II, page 82

   Then how do you account for Mr. Goffin stating that he gave a lesson on Thursday as usual ? — I did not hear the lesson. I must have been misattending if he did give one, because we were all changing.

   1879, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers, volume X, page 145

   It is a case of 'epistemic drift' as defined by Kemeny (1999), in which discourses without firm disciplinary roots tend to misattend to facts and jump to misleading conclusions.

   2017, Stuart Lowe, Housing Policy Analysis, page 291

2. transitiveTo fail to look after properly.

   However, I cannot leave this subject without lamenting the unfortuate attitude of certain members of the bar to misattend the execution of documents with complete disregard for their code of professional conduct.

   1980, Atlantic Provinces Reports, volume 66, page 79

   1 more example

   Soon after this, she removed from my district; and in the year 1861, again, for the eighth time, was pregnant, when she now fell under the care of an unqualified medical man, who had been appointed by a board of guardians to misattend the poor of a large district.

   1869, John W. Ogle, Timothy Holmes, St. George's Hospital Reports - Volume 4, page 215