missuspect

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ suspect

Verb

missuspect (third-person singular simple present missuspects, present participle missuspecting, simple past and past participle missuspected)

1. To suspect something that is not, in fact, the case.
   • 1912, Luther Anthony (B.), The Dramatist, page 124:

     Either plot would make an excellent Play, we merely prefer the financial fragment for the reason that missuspected marital infidelity is too closely a copy of plays like "The Thief” and “The Spendthrift."

   • 1928, The Leatherneck - Volume 11, page 2:

     I'll tell you why; because I can't, until I can locate some missuspecting town or something like that which doesn't know an elephant from a hole in the ground and which is yearning for the beginning of a zoo.

   • 1969, George Brandon Saul, Rushlight Heritage, page 79:

     "Mrs. Moysey" — the tragicomedy of a widow sadly missupspected, "Telling" — the almost unbearable tale of a gently insane boy murderer, and "The Working Party" — concerned with a young farm wife who, entertaining a huge "working party" of women, finally goes to pieces after trying to ignore a dead workman on her kitchen stairs are all warrant of a talent far greater than heretofore indicated.

   • 2020, David Rosenmann-Taub, Poems and Commentaries, page 204:

     I rely —wealthy prisoner with witness— on an effect that I missuspect is mine, since, unfortunately, I am a man.