misimagine

mis- +‎ imagine

misimagine (third-person singular simple present misimagines, present participle misimagining, simple past and past participle misimagined)

1. To imagine incorrectly; to form an inaccurate mental image of.
   • 1892, Thomas Osmond Summers, Switzerland: Historical and Descriptive, page 110:

     When the fact of their being ice, and not snow, is fully realized, still persons are apt to misimagine their appearance; for they are by no means smooth like our frozen lakes and rivers, but present a very unequal surface, undulating, furrowed, and broken.

   • 1990, Paul Fussell, Killing, in Verse and Prose, and Other Essays, page 36:

     The stupidity, parochialism, and greed in the international mismanagement of the whole nuclear challenge should not tempt us to misimagine the circumstances of the bomb's first “use.”

   • 2006, Shaun Nichols, The Architecture of the Imagination, page 59:

     It is not easy to say what it is to misimagine another person. It is easier to give a useful description of some other kinds of misimagination.

• misimagination