misweigh

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ weigh

Verb

misweigh (third-person singular simple present misweighs, present participle misweighing, simple past and past participle misweighed)

1. To give an inaccurate measurement of the weight (of something).
   • 1973, Bill Severn, The Right to Privacy, page 27:

     An honest butcher, for instance, might sue if his picture were used with an article about butchers who misweigh meat.

   • 1975, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. Subcommittee on Foreign Agricultural Policy, Grain Inspection, page 66:

     How can you misweigh with that kind of equipment?

   • 1984, Law Enforcement Responsibilities: Office of Inspector General:

     Violations—Bribery of inspectors to falsely grade or misweigh grain, to alter or counterfeit official inspection certificates, or to falsely represent that an official grain inspection has been made.

   • 2021, Jeffrey K. Hass, Wartime Suffering and Survival, page 58:

     In February 1942, Nina Kobyzeva complained that civilians did not receive full rations for obvious reasons: "Clerks are finagling people like beasts, they misweigh [food]. Scales are not always verified, and besides these ten grams [of food] they try to finagle buyers."

2. To treat (something) as having a level of importance different from its actual importance.
   • 2002, R.A. Salvatore, Ascendance, page 75:

     And you misweigh the situation.

   • 2015, Tren Griffin, Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor, page 80:

     This psychological tendency to misweigh what is easily recalled is a major reason why people are attracted to lotteries despite the dismal odds of winning, as they have seen other ordinary people win a lottery on the news.

   • 2019, Conor Mchugh, Jonathan Way, Daniel Whiting, Metaepistemology, page 209:

     But despite all of this, Carl might misweigh his evidence, treating his independent evidence about P as outweighing Carla's testimony out of disrespect for Carla, rather than on the basis of his appreciation that she is trying to trick him.

   • 2021, Daniel Crosby, The Laws of Wealth:

     A big part of this human underperformance is our tendency to misweigh the importance of one variable versus another.

Noun

misweigh (plural misweighs)

1. An instance of misweighing (giving an inaccurate measurement of weight)
   • 1978, AATCC, Book of Papers, page 142:

     If there is a misweigh or misfigure, the Dye Superintendent needs to know who was responsible.

   • 1993, Robert H. Leach, The Printing Ink Manual, page 831831:

     Discrepancies in the gloss level of the batch sample could be caused by a misweigh of one or more of the ink components or, on the continuous type of mills, it could be due to an incorrect mill setting or condition.

   • 2009, Steve Kilczewski, 66th Porcelain Enamel Institute Technical Forum, page 73:

     If the furnace settings are correct, this condition would indicate a misweigh, usually meaning the silica was probably left out of the mill.