mistakeverb/mɪˈsteɪk/

• 1

  To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.

  • Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.
  • Don't mistake my kindness for weakness.
• 2

  obsoleteTo misunderstand (someone).

  • Miſtake me not, my Lord, ’tis not my meaning / To raze one Title of your Honour out.
  • […] at last she so evidently demonstrated her Affection to him to be much stronger than what she bore her own Son, that it was impossible to mistake her any longer.
• 3

  obsoleteTo commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.

  • Impoſe me to what penance your inuention / Can lay vpon my ſinne, yet ſinn’d I not / But in miſtaking.
  • 1720, Jonathan Swift, “Letter to a Young Clergyman” in The Works of Jonathan Swift, London: Charles Elliot, 1784, Volume 10, pp. 6-7, No gentleman thinks it is safe or prudent to send a servant with a message, without repeating it more than once, and endeavouring to put it into terms brought down to the capacity of the bearer; yet, after all this care, it is frequent for servants to mistake, and sometimes occasion misunderstandings among friends […]
• 4

  obsoleterareTo take or choose wrongly.

  • The better act of purposes mistook / Is to mistake again; though indirect, / Yet indirection thereby grows direct,
  • The Spear with erring Haste mistook its way, But plung’d in Eniopeus’ Bosom lay.

mistakenoun/mɪˈsteɪk/

• 1

  An error.

  • There were too many mistakes in the test that, unfortunately, made you fail.
  • He always made mistakes on purpose.
• 2

  ball-gamesbaseballgamesA pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.