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All but one of the following words traces back to Latin prehendere, meaning "to seize." Which word doesn't belong?
apprehend - comprehend - misprision - misprize - prison - surprise
It's easy to see the prehendere connection in apprehend and comprehend, whereas you may be surprised that surprise is from prehendere (via Anglo-French susprendre, meaning "to capture" or "to take by surprise"). Prison, too, is from prehendere by way of Anglo-French. And misprision comes to us by way of Anglo-French mesprisun ("error, wrongdoing"), from mesprendre ("to take by mistake"), itself from prehendere. The only word that's out of place is misprize, meaning "to despise" or "to undervalue." It's ultimately from Latin pretium, meaning "value," but—in a trick move that perhaps only English could pull off—misprize has also given us a related noun meaning "contempt, scorn," in the form of an etymologically distinct misprision.
Examples of misprision in a Sentence
Samira Asma-Sadeque, People.com, 9 Oct. 2024
After pleading guilty to misprision of a felony, she was sentenced last October to 25 months in prison.
—Justin Muszynski, Hartford Courant, 5 Apr. 2024
Scott Finkbeiner, the sheriff of Hot Spring County who was indicted on federal charges of obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony last November, was arrested again Wednesday on new charges.
—Daniel McFadin, arkansasonline.com, 12 Apr. 2024
On June 27, Blanchard pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and Frazier pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony.
—Kate Perez, USA TODAY, 6 July 2023
She was later convicted of misprision of a felony and sentenced to probation.
—Clare Hymes, CBS News, 15 Dec. 2021
The second, misprision of felony, was due to Sullivan’s concealment of the hack.
—Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 5 May 2023
If convicted, Sullivan would face a maximum of five years in prison for the obstruction charge and three years for the misprision charge.
—Victoria Albert, CBS News, 20 Aug. 2020
Tuma, who frequently works with companies responding to data breaches, says that the more concerning conviction in terms of future precedent is the misprision of felony charge.
—WIRED, 8 Oct. 2022
Articles Related to misprision
Dictionary Entries Near misprision
Cite this Entry
“Misprision.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misprision. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationLegal Definition
misprision
noun
Noun
Anglo-French, error, wrongdoing, from Old French, from mesprendre to make a mistake, from mes- wrongly + prendre to take, from Latin prehendere to seize
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