misdrive

M3I1S1D2R1I1V4E1

verb

To drive badly or wrongly.

Scrabble 14
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Meanings

verbmisdrive (third-person singular simple present misdrives, present participle misdriving, simple past misdrove, past participle misdriven)

present singular third person misdrives · participle present misdriving · past misdrove · participle past misdriven

  1. ambitransitiverareTo drive badly or wrongly.

    Nightly it blazed, and waved its fiery tail, And made the dreaded Ursa Major quail; Destined but once before her fear to prove, When Phaeton the Solar car misdrove.

    1857, Thomas Baker, The Steam-engine, Or, The Powers of Flame, page 93
    1 more example

    It removes culpability from any distortion and makes anything, no matter how heinous, a complete accident. A drunk driver who crashes a car into someone can now apologise for miscounting his alcohol intake before going on to misdrive into someone he mistook for a road.

    2009, Armando Iannucci, The Audacity of Hype

Origin

From mis- + drive.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

misdrive. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misdrive

MLA

“misdrive.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misdrive. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “misdrive,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/misdrive.

Source: misdrive on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.