miscommand

Incompetence at commanding.

Noun

  1. Incompetence at commanding.
    • This applied to the privates in the ranks, and to officers in the highest grades. The attempt to smother up and to stifle investigation ordered to be made late the miscommand of its members who have brought disgrace...
    • While he finished that glass, he managed to pay devoted attention to both charmers, meanwhile spieling away with a masterly miscommand of English to the large group that now surrounded him. - 1961, The Reader's Digest -...
    • Thersites , a chronic complainer, scolds Agamemnon for miscommand, and is rebuked and beaten by Odysseus. - 1998, Coles Notes, The Iliad, page 28:

Origin

From mis- + command.

Forms

miscommands

Verb

  1. To command incompetently.
    • If a Governour make a new Sacrament, I will not obey, because: his command is null, and the thing simply evil. If he miscommand a Circumstance of Time, or Place, or Gesture, I will consider the consequents. - 1659,...
    • If either the superiors miscommand, or the inferiors disobey, it is an affront to peace. - 1808, Joseph Hall, The Works:
    • The truant skipped his drill, but had an eye no man could turn aside or miscommand for where the quarry of his spirit lay. - 1904, Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, page 609:

Forms

miscommands miscommanding miscommanded