| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
|
8. Word Formation: Plurals, Possessives, Affixes, and Compounds
|
| § 32. mis- |
| The basic meaning of the prefix mis- is “bad; badly; wrong; wrongly.” Thus misfortune means “bad fortune” and misbehave means “to behave badly.” Likewise, a misdeed is “a wrong deed” and misdo means “to do wrongly.” Mis- forms compounds primarily by attaching to verbs: mishear, misremember. Mis- also frequently forms compounds by attaching to nouns that come from verbs: miscalculation, mismanagement, mispronunciation. The prefix mis- can be traced back to Old English. Another mis- is a variant of miso-, discussed below. | 1 |
|
|
|
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
