Contextualizebeta

misfire

noun
/ˈmɪs.faɪ(ɹ)/

Etymology

Either a univerbation of earlier miss fire, or the compound mis- + fire (or possibly a confluence of both).

  1. inherited from *péh₂wr̥✻
  2. inherited from *fōr✻ — “fire”
  3. inherited from *fuir✻
  4. inherited from fȳr — “fire”
  5. inherited from fyr
  6. prefixed as misfire — “mis + fire”

Definitions

  1. An act of misfiring.

  2. A failure.

    • The fact is, Mr Carrados, Gertrude is a misfire. It was the surprise of her life (if I said "disappointment" you'd think me catty) when Mark married me, and she didn't set out to be pleasant to the interloper.
    • Amazon’s misfires with Alexa may have led Google astray, said a former manager who worked on Google Assistant.

  3. To fail to discharge properly.

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. To fail to ignite in the proper sequence.

    2. To initiate an action potential without the proper stimulus.

    3. To fail to achieve the anticipated result.

      • His practical joke misfired and he nearly burnt my left hand.

The neighborhood

Derived

misfirer

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for misfire. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA