mistake
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mihstaykSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
mɪsˈteɪk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.
noun
An error.
baseball
A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.
Used this way, mistake is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use mistake
- “He wasn't going to admit his mistake.”noun
- “He made a bad mistake.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.