misguide

verb

mis·​guide ˌmis-ˈgīd 

misguided; misguiding; misguides

transitive verb

: to lead astray : misdirect

prejudice misguides our minds

misguider noun

Synonyms

• bamboozle
• beguile
• bluff
• buffalo
• burn
• catch
• con
• cozen
• deceive
• delude
• dupe
• fake out
• fool
• gaff
• gammon
• gull
• have
• have on [chiefly British]
• hoax
• hoodwink
• hornswoggle
• humbug
• juggle
• misinform
• mislead
• snooker
• snow
• spoof
• string along
• suck in
• sucker
• take in
• trick

Examples of misguide in a Sentence

we were misguided by the flashy advertisements for what turned out to be pretty lousy pizza

Recent Examples on the Web

To equate coca with the raw alkaloid is, in fact, as misguided as suggesting that the delicious flesh of a peach is equivalent to the hydrogen cyanide found in every peach pit. —Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 6 Apr. 2025

While the number of outages appeared to decline, Spotify posted on social media that rumors of a hack were misguided. —David Matthews, New York Daily News, 16 Apr. 2025

Environmental activists said efforts to revive coal were misguided. —Ivan Penn, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025

How misguided some men’s searching for community became evident to Vera Papisova, a journalist who spent a year dating far-right men for a story for Cosmopolitan magazine, when one man brought her to what was ostensibly a gathering of neo-Nazis on a second date. —Donie O'Sullivan, CNN Money, 13 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for misguide

• abide
• allied
• applied
• aside
• astride
• azide
• backside
• bankside
• bastide
• bayside
• bedside
• belied

Kids Definition

misguide

verb

mis·​guide (ˈ)mis-ˈgīd 

: to lead astray : mislead

misguidance

-ˈgīd-ᵊn(t)s

noun