misguided

adjective

mis·​guid·​ed (ˌ)mis-ˈgī-dəd 

: led or prompted by wrong or inappropriate motives or ideals

well-meaning but misguided do-gooders

misguidedly

(ˌ)mis-ˈgī-dəd-lē 

adverb

misguidedness

(ˌ)mis-ˈgī-dəd-nəs 

noun

Examples of misguided in a Sentence

She's been getting a lot of bad advice from misguided friends.

He blames the crisis on the government's misguided economic policies.

a misguided attempt to help

Recent Examples on the Web

But this vision in our current geopolitical and multidomain reality is misguided. —Charles Beames, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023

Especially misguided is his push for the creation of a Palestinian state. —WSJ, 20 Nov. 2023

Odegard that four decades after a misguided approach to diagnosing dyslexia kept him from getting help in school, thousands of children across the U.S. are needlessly suffering for the same reason. —Sarah Carr, Scientific American, 16 Nov. 2023

The tone, which seemingly changes by the minute, is off from the start and leaves an utterly charmless trail of half-baked ideas and misguided attempts at subversive edginess in its wake. —Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Nov. 2023

But their belief that stronger unions would solve the party’s problems is misguided. —Heather Wilhelm, National Review, 9 Nov. 2023

Sullivan’s solution to the United States’ domestic challenges is misguided. —Ryan Hass, Foreign Affairs, 24 Oct. 2023

What is being put in place today is a misguided set of laws that remove the incentive for water agencies to invest in water abundance. —Edward Ring, National Review, 3 Nov. 2023

Lam pointed to a drive in recent years by the authorities to remove the city’s famous neon lights in the name of safety as an example of the current misguided approach, saying Hong Kong’s most defining nighttime icons were being dismantled one sign at a time. —Chris Lau, CNN, 3 Nov. 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1500, in the meaning defined above