mistake

verb

1. (transitive)To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.

   “Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.”

   “Don't mistake my kindness for weakness.”

   “My father’s purposes have been mistook;”

   “The reigning error of his life was, that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man, as the friend of goodness.”

   “Because I don't want to know I didn't want to know I just didn't want to know I just didn't want Mistook the nods for an approval Just ignore the smoke and smile”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To misunderstand (someone).

   “Miſtake me not, my Lord, ’tis not my meaning / To raze one Title of your Honour out.”

   “[…] at last she so evidently demonstrated her Affection to him to be much stronger than what she bore her own Son, that it was impossible to mistake her any longer.”

3. (intransitive, obsolete)To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.

   “Impoſe me to what penance your inuention / Can lay vpon my ſinne, yet ſinn’d I not / But in miſtaking.”

   “1720, Jonathan Swift, “Letter to a Young Clergyman” in The Works of Jonathan Swift, London: Charles Elliot, 1784, Volume 10, pp. 6-7, No gentleman thinks it is safe or prudent to send a servant with a message, without repeating it more than once, and endeavouring to put it into terms brought down to the capacity of the bearer; yet, after all this care, it is frequent for servants to mistake, and sometimes occasion misunderstandings among friends […]”

   “"Bah!" said the Englishwoman: "what knight ever feared cold? Besides, you mistake; the night is warm, and you look so handsome in your gown."”

   “There is also a chancellor, — no, I mistake, — a chandler and green-grocer, with his hands full of warts; […]”

4. (obsolete, rare)To take or choose wrongly.

   “The better act of purposes mistook / Is to mistake again; though indirect, / Yet indirection thereby grows direct,”

   “The Spear with erring Haste mistook its way, But plung’d in Eniopeus’ Bosom lay.”

noun

1. An error.

   “There were too many mistakes in the test, that unfortunately you failed.”

   “He always did mistakes on purpose.”

   “He, that would write exactly, muſt avoid a Barbarous Pronunciation, and conſider for facility, or thorow miſtake, many words are not ſounded after the beſt dialect. Such as […] Wun, one.”

2. A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.