What is "misapply"

Usage examples of "misapply".

As for the ungrateful man who habitually misapplies benefits and acts so by choice, he will no more bestow a benefit upon him than he would lend money to a spendthrift, or place a deposit in the hands of one who had already often refused to many persons to give up the property with which they had entrusted him.

Will is to be taken in its strict sense, and not misapplied to the mere recognition of need.

As she left the outer office that day, she appeared to be looking into the eyes of the secretaries, but she was focusing on their misapplied lipstick or two-piece paisley crepe de chine instead.

I conceive, often misapplied, and indeed, when I consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities of every kind that spring up in the tainted atmosphere of a feverish civilization, I am inclined to think that so far as the relative wickedness of the parties is concerned, four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity.

The whole charm of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect of experience, and where this has for some reason failed, or been misapplied, the charm is broken.

After each of the misapplied pronouns a verb is understood of which each pronoun is the subject.

It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

Therefore in his preaching, if the word used for the lofty, simple utterance of divine messengers, may without offence be misapplied to his paltry memorizations, his main thought was always whether the said lady was justly appreciating the eloquence and wisdom with which he meant to impress her--while in fact he remained incapable of understanding how deep her natural insight penetrated both him and his pretensions.

It was a misapplied, supposedly funny name that did not conceal the waiting horror.

She was struck with horror at our conversation, the latter part only of which she heard, and of course misapplied and misunderstood.

They were phrased and rephrased, applied and misapplied, tried out in every possible and impossible way.

I need only touch on the common modes of misunderstanding or misapplying the evidence of nature.

Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of office on a charge of misapplying public funds.

The myth of the illogical or prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wasted industry.

I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves, they ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a consideration of his own argument, he had a right to make you believe that they understood the principles of government, but misapplied them, that he has arisen to enlighten the world as to the just application of this principle.