misgloss

present singular third person misglosses · participle present misglossing · participle past misglossed · past misglossed

1. To provide an incorrect translation or synopsis of

   It means 'white tip' and not 'white of the eye' as Krämer misglosses it.

   2002, Ward Hunt Goodenough, Under Heaven's Brow: Pre-Christian Religious Tradition in Chuuk, page 208

   4 more examples

   Upis taught, Misunderstood, misgloss'd, the tale how brought Harmonia was to Cadmus — higher than Her mate in race, a dæmon, he mere man;

   1876, Alexander Crawford Lindsay Earl of Crawford, Argo: Or The Quest of the Golden Fleece, page 68

   But the definition is anachronistic and misglosses the citation it was presumably devised to explain.

   1981, Catherine Slater, Defeatists and Their Enemies, page 139

   Both its traditional subject matter and the concision of its form have recommended it to this very day as a promise of "infinite riches in a little room” (=stanza) , to misgloss Marlowe's phrase.

   1992, Lowry Nelson, Poetic Configurations: Essays in Literary History and Criticism, page 41

   In a scheme that involves material possessions in huge quantity and counts on Calchas's thrice-invoked greed (1369, 1377–78, 1399), Criseyde claims that she will convince Calchas that it was his cowardice that caused him to misgloss "goddes text" (1409-11).

   1996, Michaela Paasche Grudin, Chaucer and the Politics of Discourse, page 67

plural misglosses

1. An incorrect translation or synopsis.

   Starostin's sisi 'deer' is a misgloss, the word can refer to 'deer' as an 'animal for consumption' but does not necessary do so.

   2005, Martine Irma Robbeets, Is Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic?, page 100

   2 more examples

   Recently, this misgloss has led to an impossible interpretation of the Beowulf poet's allusion to "beornas on blancum" [warriors on white horses] (856a) and their racing on "fealwe mearwas" [fallow horses] (865b) in the episode of the Danes and Geats coming back from the mere.

   2003, Earl R. Anderson, Folk-taxonomies in Early English, page 152

   Here such cases as ghost words & misglosses, secondary semantics, different etymologies for one etymon or one etymology for different etyma, and finally semantic overpermissiveness are discussed.

   2006, Folia orientalia - Volumes 42-43, page 467