mispromote

M3I1S1P3R1O1M3O1T1E1

verb

To promote incorrectly; to advertise or advocate for something other than the intended use.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

verbmispromote (third-person singular simple present mispromotes, present participle mispromoting, simple past and past participle mispromoted)

present singular third person mispromotes · participle present mispromoting · participle past mispromoted · past mispromoted

  1. To promote incorrectly; to advertise or advocate for something other than the intended use.

    When companies misuse or mispromote TCM herbs, results can be disastrous.

    2013, Daniel Potter, Jennifer Hanin, What to Do When You Can't Get Pregnant
    5 more examples

    You can weep tears because of an up-to-date vision which misunderstands, mispromotes and bends the truth so as to preserve the eternal powerlessness of Margaret Fuller.

    1988, Laurie James, Why Margaret Fuller Ossoli is Forgotten, page 31

    As black women's works are rejected or mispromoted, " [t] he public ... is allowed to think that black women are generally incapable of literary creation" (Stetson 89) .

    1996, Linda Tate, A Southern Weave of Women: Fiction of the Contemporary South, page 181

    Yellow Submarine was a commercial flop in Britain, mainly because it was mispromoted as a children's film.

    2014, Simon Philo, British Invasion: The Crosscurrents of Musical Influence, page 135

    Boxing Helena was so misunderstood and so mispromoted. Boxing Helena was never about “This is women's fault.”

    2020, Courtenay Stallings, Sheryl Lee, Laura's Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks

    Our own study began in 1974, after we had published a report on how prescription drugs in the United States are discovered, produced, promoted, priced, prescribed by physicians and used by patients — and how these potent products are too frequently mispromoted, mis-prescribed and misused.

    2022, Richard Blum, Andrew Herxheimer, Catherine Stenzl, Pharmaceuticals and Health Policy
  2. To promote by mistake; to elevate to a position for which (someone) is unqualified.

    Mispromoting internally is about as costly as miss-hiring ^([sic]) an external candidate.

    2009, Ivanka Menken, Organizational behavior and leadership management essentials, page 162
    2 more examples

    But the real tragedy, it seems to me, is that these victims of hasty or uninformed promotions struggle from job to job with the stigma of failure when the real failure was not theirs, but that of those who mispromoted them.

    1957, Foundry Management & Technology - Volume 85, Issues 1-6, page 174

    People are C players when they are mishired, mispromoted, or misdeployed within their company.

    1997, BD Smart, GH Smart, Topgrading the organization

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*mey-?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*meyth₂-
  3. Proto-Germanic*missaz
  4. Proto-Germanic*missa-
  5. Proto-West Germanic*missa-
  6. Old Englishmis-
  7. Middle Englishmys-
  8. Englishmis-
  9. Proto-Indo-European*per-der.?
  10. Proto-Indo-European*pér
  11. Proto-Indo-European*pró
  12. Proto-Indo-European*pro-
  13. Proto-Italic*pro-
  14. Latinprō-
  15. Proto-Indo-European*m(y)ewh₁-
  16. Proto-Indo-European*m(y)owh₁éyeti
  17. Proto-Italic*moweō
  18. Latinmoveō
  19. Latinprōmoveō
  20. Latinprōmōtus
  21. Englishpromote
  22. Englishmispromote

From mis- + promote.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

mispromote. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mispromote

MLA

“mispromote.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mispromote. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mispromote,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mispromote.

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