misconception

English

Etymology

From mis- +‎ conception.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌmɪskənˈsɛp.ʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

misconception (countable and uncountable, plural misconceptions)

1. A mistaken belief, a wrong idea.

   There are several common misconceptions about the theory of relativity.

   You're obviously under the misconception that I care about your problems.

   He had the misconception that the word "misconception" meant becoming pregnant with a girl.

   • 1968, Lucian W. Pye, “The Political Process in Action: The Communes”, in The Spirit of Chinese Politics: A Psychocultural Study of the Authority Crisis in Political Development‎^[1], M.I.T. Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 203:

     From November 28 to December 8, 1958, the CCP Central Committee held its sixth plenum in Wuhan, Hopei^{[sic – meaning Hupei]}, and at the end of the session it issued a revealing resolution that declared there had been some misconception about the system and that party committees throughout the countryside should make full use of the five months from December 1958 to April 1959 to tidy up the communes.

   • 2010, S. S. Abdool Karim, Q. Abdool Karim, HIV/AIDS in South Africa, page 299:

     It is a common misconception that anal intercourse is an exclusively homosexual male practice. […] As elsewhere in Africa, little data exist on the role of anal sex in HIV acquisition in women in the general population […]

   • 2024, NTSB, Intersection Crash Between Passenger Car and Combination Vehicle, Tishomingo, Oklahoma, March 22, 2022:

     We also found that because of the prevalence of cannabis in serious and fatal crashes, the changes in state laws regarding its legal use, and the public’s misconceptions about its impairing effects on driving, educating drivers on the impairing effects of cannabis use and the illegality of driving under its influence is critical to highway safety.

Translations

a mistaken belief

• Bulgarian: заблуждение (bg) n (zabluždenie)
• Finnish: väärinkäsitys (fi)
• French: idée erronée f
• German: Missverständnis (de) n, Irrglaube (de) m, Fehlannahme f, irrige Vorstellung f, falsche Auffassung f
• Hungarian: tévhit (hu)
• Italian: idea errata, malinteso (it) m, pregiudizio (it) m
• Maori: pōhēhētanga
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: misoppfatning m or f

  Nynorsk: misoppfatning f

• Plautdietsch: Misvestentniss n
• Russian: заблужде́ние (ru) n (zabluždénije)
• Slovene: zmota
• Spanish: creencia errónea f, creencia equivocada f
• Swahili: dhana potofu
• Swedish: missuppfattning (sv) c

Anagrams

• conceptionism