misidentify

verb

mis·​iden·​ti·​fy ˌmis-ī-ˈden-tə-ˌfī 

-ə-ˈden-

misidentified; misidentifying

transitive verb

: to identify (someone or something) incorrectly

… a coroner apparently misidentified the bullet he removed from the victim, stating that its caliber differed from that of the bullet entered as evidence against the known shooter.

—David Fisher

While examining the American Museum's collection, I came across a mongoose specimen that was clearly misidentified.

—W. Chris Wozencraft

Examples of misidentify in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Wiring the Teensy to the magnetic-imaging tile was trivial, only complicated by the fact that one side of the board has a silk-screen error that misidentifies the SPI connections (SparkFun says this will be fixed in future runs of the board). — Stephen Cass, IEEE Spectrum, 26 Oct. 2026

Kim Bruno Espinosa slammed ICE at the press conference and accused the agency of misidentifying the man with Parra. — Suzanne Gamboa, NBC news, 16 Oct. 2026

When Sununu announced his campaign in October, Fox News broadcast a story misidentifying him as Chris, displayed multiple photos of his brother and combined their resumes. — ABC News, 5 Sep. 2026

The Architecture Of The Shift Much of the discourse around the architectural shift today frames the companies rewriting this dynamic as bank challengers, but that misidentifies what's happening. — Serhii Zakharov, Forbes.com, 6 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1867, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for misidentify

• canaliculi
• dwi
• micronuclei
• oversimplify
• abscissae
• adonai
• alibi
• alkali
• alumni
• amoebae
• amplify
• annuli