miscompose

Verb

1. To compose badly.
   • And, grieved that lives so matched should miscompose, Each mourn the double waste; and question dare To the Great Dame whence incarnation flows, Why those high-purposed children never were: What will she answer? - 1866,...
   • […] where much ridicule is directed against the old painter who wrote as Observator; ridicule miscomposed by the editor, Thomas Burgeland Johnson, who wrote also now and then under the pseudonym T. H. Needham. - 1929,...
   • Its limitation of Knowledge constitutes by incompleteness, but also by openness to error, an Ignorance. In dealing with actualities it may misobserve, misuse, miscreate; in dealing with possibilities it may miscompose,...

   1. To produce a defective product or outcome.

   2. To arrange an artistic work in a disharmonious way.

      • The Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung said that the favourite composer of the Viennese 'has in this case positively miscomposed', but the London Harmonicon considered that the Fantasy possessed 'merit far above...
      • We could easily miscompose this so that the time-scales of the two hands matched "better": - 1988, Stephen Brown, The sense of music, page 249:
      • Sometimes what's in the frame can seem hard to work out, almost intentionally miscomposed; in some early pictures I'm not sure Mapplethorpe always knew the difference. In many, though, he obviously did. - 2017, Leslie...

   3. To make up out of the wrong ingredients or the wrong proportions of ingredients.

      • To give examples of the way our native regiments are miscomposed. In a certain cavalry regiment there are one and a half squadrons Sikhs, one-half squadron Hindustani Hindus, one-half squadron Hindustani Mahomedans,...
      • […] this governor contrived that a bill for Georgia's full reinstatement should be reported from Butler's reconstruction committee which among other "fundamental conditions" prolonged this miscomposed legislature for an...
      • Instances of faulty conception and designing of technical devices and mechanisms (12), in appropriate chemical compounds or miscomposed pharmaceutical preparations as well as inadequate control of the edibility of...

   4. To typeset incorrectly.

      • It was purposely miscomposed , as a protection against forged labels on bottles from other and inferior distilleries. - 1936, Christopher Sidgwick, German Journey, page 27:
      • Although almost universally miscomposed, despite one simple rule governing their use , Roman numerals are a neat typographic element . The rule? Always align Roman numerals on the right , never on the left. - 1988,...