misbegotten
/ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɑtn̩/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.96 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
adj
verb
noun
A person born into infelicitous circumstances.
Example Sentences
- "But as the Deuill would haue it, three miſ-be-gotten Knaues, in Kendall Greene, came at my Back, […]"
- "“Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. “What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my child—yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it.”"
- "Many of the strangest, most misbegotten studio films of the last 20 years have been comedies, perhaps because middle-aged executives have no comprehension of what the younger generation finds funny."
- "Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me—something seizing, surprising and revolting—this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to rëinforce it;[…]"
- ""Do they not sneakingly bestow on me their crass inability to do anything with their own misbegotten progeny, a subterfuge which I scornfully fub off on text-books?""
- "There was the guy I spent a misbegotten night with who said he'd call me and never did but came to the party anyway, and I felt primed for a confrontation."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *mey-? Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂-der. Proto-Germanic *missaz Proto-Germanic *missa- Proto-West Germanic *missa- Old English mis- Middle English mys- English mis- English begotten English misbegotten From mis- + begotten.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɑtn̩/
- British English: /ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɒtn̩/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more misbegotten (comparative)
most misbegotten (superlative)