Dictionary

misthank en · VERB

Etymology

From mis- + thank.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) To express one's discontent with someone's behavior.
   • A ruin'd Ccountry for it's woeful lot Misthanks it's King, nor will be satisfied. 1812, William Shakespeare, Capel Lofft, Aphorisms from Shakespeare, page 381:
   • […] mis-thanks, disappointment, and perhaps losses of money, and credit, yet may the remark not be an idle one, as we design it a covenant between ourselves and the reader that neither ourselves nor our inheritors of pen and ink forever, shall praise any body or anything unless we mean it and have good cause. 1940, Isaac Cox, The Annals of Trinity County, page 25:
   • I had (in Harbour) heav'd mine Anchor o're, And ev'n already set one foot a-shoar; When lo, the Dolphin, beating 'gainst the bank, 'Gan mine obliuion moodily mis-thank: 1611, Joshua Sylvester, Du Bartas: His Deume Weekes and Workes Translated, page 126:
2. To thank or give credit to someone for something they did not do.
   • If only I hadn't gotten drunk and raced around lying and misthanking . 1983, Muriel Canfield Kanoza, I Wish I Could Say I Love You, page 37:
   • Mis-Thanking Russell Edson 2022, Nicholas Lauridsen, “Nobody's Storybook: Reading Russell Edson for the Wrong Reasons”, in Anne Caldwell, Oz Hardwick, editor, Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice:

Forms