misfirer

plural misfirers

1. One who misfires.

   In terms of her sense of slippage, Valerie Solanas runs with the best of them. None of these terms stick, which is why she remains a chronic misfirer.

   2017, Avital Ronell, Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas

   2 more examples

   Goethe is the great foundation figure; Byron and Shelley are the high-minded but incompetent misfirers; Carlyle, through an infection of international provincialism that crippled his genius, is the great but failed physician […]

   1983, William Earl Buckler, Matthew Arnold's Prose: Three Essays in Literary Enlargement

   Next, you're looking for a sparkplug to put in the lead-off position. This is someone who will rev up the team with a mark right away. Watch out for the sputterer, the misfirer, or anyone who fuels up with a gallon of ethyl alcohol before frame one.

   1987, Dawson Taylor, Gary Patterson, Spare me!: portrait of a bowling fanatic, page 56