How to Use misdirect in a Sentence

misdirect

verb
Definition of misdirectnext
  • Their mail was misdirected to our address.
  • If he tells you he's not interested, he's trying to misdirect you.
  • Magritte’s world is a hall of mirrors, but even his mirrors misdirect.
    — Washington Post, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Many others wondered whether the shooting would misdirect blame from their peers to them.
    — Kimmy Yam, NBC News, 30 Aug. 2023
  • The Heat know just how to bust Ellington loose and even more important: when to misdirect the defense instead.
    — Rob Mahoney, SI.com, 5 Apr. 2018
  • The prey emits a glowing fluid or a cloud of sparks to misdirect the predator from its real location.
    — Liz Langley, National Geographic, 2 May 2019
  • During the War of 1812, locals were said to have fooled the British by hanging lanterns high in trees and elsewhere to misdirect enemy gunfire.
    — Tom Sietsema, Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2022
  • Now translucency is a design flourish, a way to direct or misdirect the eye.
    — Cecilia D'anastasio, Wired, 27 Apr. 2021
  • To fight the infection, the body produces inflammation, which may be misdirected to the nerve that controls movement of the face.
    — Sarah Klein, PEOPLE.com, 26 July 2017
  • The play-fake followed by keeper/rollout action misdirected and slowed the Eagles’ four-man pass rush.
    — Rich Campbell, chicagotribune.com, 6 Nov. 2019
  • As in all the best heist flicks, Goldhaber makes sure to misdirect the audience with some choice red herrings and cliffhangers, nearly all of which end with a genuine surprise.
    — Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2023
  • But that anger might be misdirected, because the Seahawks do invest in their linemen.
    — Matt Calkins, The Seattle Times, 28 Apr. 2017
  • But the fact that these films have some high ambition doesn't negate that the ambition is largely misplaced, or at least misdirected.
    — Corey Atad, Esquire, 22 May 2017
  • There is times that White House aides will tell me Trump has tweeted things to create distraction or storylines to misdirect the media.
    — NBC News, 31 Dec. 2017
  • The series returns to Netflix on Sept. 21 with its teenage and adult characters equally as misdirected in their love lives and sense of purpose.
    — Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 12 Sep. 2023
  • When Gabriel went in motion to try to misdirect the defense with jet-sweep action, Gardner-Johnson ended up in position to fill the hole Cohen tried to run through.
    — Rich Campbell, chicagotribune.com, 23 Oct. 2019
  • The gameplay rewards cunning and deception with the freedom to pass more than once behind the line of scrimmage and misdirect opponents.
    — Gieson Cacho, Star Tribune, 9 Sep. 2020
  • Maybe the pandemic is revealing that the techlash was misdirected all along.
    — Elizabeth M. Renieris, Wired, 30 Apr. 2020
  • In the 27th minute, the Whitecaps had their first real opportunity when Tony Tchani’s header from a freekick just outside the box was misdirected.
    — Luis Miguel Echegaray, SI.com, 26 Oct. 2017
  • And then… And then… Trump’s survival has rested on his talent to distract his audiences and misdirect their attention.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 14 June 2023
  • The brunt of viral replication might be over, leaving the immune frenzy to misdirect much of its havoc onto our own tissues instead.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 4 Aug. 2022
  • This was a year of outrage: outrage at injustices beyond the art world, but too often misdirected inward.
    — Roberta Smith, Holland Cotter and Jason Farago, New York Times, 6 Dec. 2017
  • Over the last two decades, Walker has been attacked by critics for reproducing racist tropes, but that outrage is misdirected.
    — Jenna Wortham, New York Times, 26 Apr. 2023
  • Do not Google their contact information or you could be misdirected as part of another scam — search on the platforms in question.
    — Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 21 Feb. 2024
  • The researchers next screened for auto-antibodies, that is, antibodies spurred by the vaccine that are misdirected against a person's body rather than the virus.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 9 May 2023
  • Maguire also warned that ire over the automated tickets will be misdirected at him and other traffic cops.
    — Robert Salonga, The Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2017
  • Far greater resources and political will—albeit much of it misdirected—did not solve the previous war.
    — Alex De Waal, Foreign Affairs, 18 Sep. 2023
  • The struggle to be good is central to many of these stories, never mind that the characters’ good intentions are often misdirected or self-serving.
    — Helen Phillips, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2017
  • The author's skillful ability to misdirect the reader to the point that everyone appears guilty is impressive.
    — Mary Cadden, USA TODAY, 18 Aug. 2021
  • But Sutton and Rao found many leaders whose own habits prolonged meetings, wasted time, and misdirected others in countless ways.
    — Alan Murray, Fortune, 5 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'misdirect.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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