mispraise

present singular third person mispraises · participle present mispraising · participle past mispraised · past mispraised

1. raretransitiveTo praise falsely, injudiciously, or without good reason.

   Anaximander's interest in cosmogony has been vastly overestimated, and his achievements consistently mispraised.

   2010, Paul F. O'Rourke (quoting Jonathan Barnes), Offerings to the Discerning Eye, Sue D'Auria (ed.), p. 247 n.25 (Google preview)

   2 more examples

   [T]hough I spend my nights, and dayes, and thoughts, and spirits, and words, and preaching, and writing, upon Princes, and Judges, and Magistrates . . . I have not paid a farthing of my debt to God; I have not praised him, but I have praised them, till not only my selfe, but even they, whom I have so mispraised, are the worse in the sight of God, for my over-praising.

   1623, John Donne, The sermons of John Donne, Sermon 12 (Google preview)

   We look upon it not so much as a strangely overpraised, but as a mispraised composition. It is a torrent of abuse.

   1845, Morgan Rattler, "Touching Antony the Triumvir and Cicero the Orator," Fraser's Magazine (September), p. 326 (Google preview)

2. archaictransitiveTo slander, blame, or disparage.

   On hearing the Duke of Wellington mispraised he defends him, in a sonnet.

   1949, Lionel Trilling, Matthew Arnold, →ISBN, page 106