mistake

1. (transitive) To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.Examples: "Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar."; "Don't mistake my kindness for weakness."; "My father’s purposes have been mistook;"transitive

2. (transitive, obsolete) To misunderstand (someone).Examples: "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."obsoletetransitive

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.Examples: "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 […]"; ""Bah!" said the Englishwoman: "what knight ever feared cold? Besides, you mistake; the night is warm, and you look so handsome in your gown.""intransitiveobsolete

4. (obsolete, rare) To take or choose wrongly.Examples: "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."obsoleterare