misrepresentative

adjective

Purporting or seeming to be representative without actually being so.

OriginEnglish representative ← Middle English mys- ← Old English mis- →
Scrabble 24
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Meanings

adjectivemisrepresentative (not comparable)
  1. not comparablePurporting or seeming to be representative without actually being so.

    When heterosexual men do engage in homosexual sex […] these practices are treated as momentary aberrations, and a good deal of work goes into explaining why they occurred and why they are misrepresentative of, or discordant with, the true sexual orientation of participants.

    2015, Jane Ward, Not Gay, New York University Press, →ISBN, page 7

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. Englishrepresentative
  10. Englishmisrepresentative

From mis- + representative.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

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

MLA

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

Chicago

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

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