mispreserve

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ preserve

Verb

mispreserve (third-person singular simple present mispreserves, present participle mispreserving, simple past and past participle mispreserved)

1. To preserve badly or to preserve something that does not merit preservation.
   • 1917, United States Congressional Serial Set - Volume 7300, page 54:

     There is no positive evidence of the fact, but that proposition was raised is the exact reason why it is provided in the election law that you can't open a ballot box and can't take any cognizance of ballots that have been so mispreserved.

   • 1936, Walter Wilkinson, Puppets Through Lancashire, page 81:

     Here was Lancashire heavily weighted again with the exuberance of the Victorians, with pictures of ladies made of the smoothest china, of yearning children, of dear little cats, and dogs, and donkeys , with all the oil paint sunsets and sticky landscapes, the only excellent thing about them being the varnish which had mispreserved them, and deprived contemporary artists of all that wall space.

   • 1990, James A. Boon, Affinities and Extremes, page 199:

     The "stars" of Fifty Years of Romance and Research include a native "Rob Roy of Sarawak," Hose's adoring wife Poppy, and a mispreserved giant orangutan head she valiantly delivered to Cambridge's Dr. Duckworth.