Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To despise.
  • transitive verb To undervalue.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Mistake; misconception; error; blunder.
  • To mistake; misconstrue.
  • To slight or undervalue; disparage; despise.
  • noun Contempt; scorn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To slight or undervalue.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To despise or hold in contempt
  • verb To undervalue

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The only word that's out of place is "misprize," meaning "to undervalue."

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day 2008

  • Yet I would not misprize the cats of Seville, which apparently have their money price.

    Familiar Spanish Travels 2004

  • Let everything that we say, my fellow-countrymen, everything that we henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this response till the majesty and might of our concerted power shall fill the thought and utterly defeat the force of those who flout and misprize what we honor and hold dear.

    Documenting the American South: The Southern Experience in 19-th Century America 1918

  • What was it that enabled him, short of being a monster with visibly cloven feet and exhaling brimstone, to misprize so cruelly a nature like his wife's and to walk about the world with such a handsome invincible grin?

    Madame De Mauves Henry James 1879

  • Yet I would not misprize the cats of Seville, which apparently have their money price.

    Familiar Spanish Travels William Dean Howells 1878

  • His verse seems to me not poetry, but the materials of poetry, like one's emotions; yet I would not misprize it, and I am glad to own that I have had moments of great pleasure in it.

    Literary Friends and Acquaintance; a Personal Retrospect of American Authorship William Dean Howells 1878

  • His verse seems to me not poetry, but the materials of poetry, like one's emotions; yet I would not misprize it, and I am glad to own that I have had moments of great pleasure in it.

    My First Visit to New England (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) William Dean Howells 1878

  • Which word doesn't belong? apprehend comprehend misprision misprize prison surprise

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day 2008

  • If you’ll check the second entry for misprision in the Oxford English Dictionary, you’ll find a derivation, not from the French mesprendre, but from the English misprize.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • If you’ll check the second entry for misprision in the Oxford English Dictionary, you’ll find a derivation, not from the French mesprendre, but from the English misprize.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

Comments

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  • 1) to hold in contempt: despise

    2) undervalue

    May 12, 2008

  • v.t.

    to slight or undervalue.

    "O for those vanished hours, so much misprized!" --Hilhouse.

    December 30, 2008

  • Also root of misprision, a very cool word.

    December 30, 2008