misrepresentation

Etymology

It is formed from English mis- (“badly, wrongly”) + representation,^[2][3][4] beside the verb misrepresent, which the OED records from 1633, in Prynne's “Histrio-mastix”.^[2] Etymonline dates both the noun and the verb to the 1640s.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A wrong or incorrect account of facts, statements or a person's character, or the act of giving one: 1641, in the Diurnall Occurrences.^[2][5] Etymonline glosses the first sense as an unfair or dishonest account.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first sense, which covers both honest error and deliberate falsehood.^[2] Johnson (1755) distinguished the act of misrepresenting from an account that is maliciously false, quoting Swift for the first.^[6] In law it names a false or misleading assertion, usually made to deceive, and the assertion may be made by conduct as well as by words.^[7][4] A rarer sense, failure to act faithfully as someone's agent or representative, is recorded from 1764, in James Otis's Rights of the British Colonies,^[2] matching the verb's sense "to represent badly as an agent", from 1860.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1641 – a wrong or incorrect account of facts or of a person; the act of misrepresenting.^[2][5]
• 1764 – inadequacy or unfaithfulness as an agent or representative (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of giving a false, incorrect or misleading account of facts, of a statement or of a person.^[4][2]
2. An account or statement of this kind: The court found the brochure full of misrepresentations.^[4][2]
3. (law) A false or misleading assertion, made by words or by conduct, usually with the intent to deceive.^[7][4]
4. (rare) Failure to act faithfully as someone's agent or representative.^[2]

Related words

• misrepresent
• represent
• representative

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
6. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West