miswork

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ work

Verb

miswork (third-person singular simple present misworks, present participle misworking, simple past and past participle misworked)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To work (something} incorrectly.
   • 1832, Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court, page 44:

     It is possible to miswork a piece of steel so as to have a cavity in the center.

   • 1885, The General Statutes of the State of Nevada:

     If any person who, with the intent to defraud or appropriate to his own use the horse, mule, jack, jenny, ox, cow, calf, sheep, hog, or other stock of another, shall willfully miswork or misbrand any stock not his own, or kill any stock running at large, whether branded, marked, or not, shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of felony, and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term not less than six months nor more than five years.

   • 1957, Gennadiĭ Semenovich Fish, The Land and the Corn: Popular Science Essays, page 66:

     Yes, it is foolish indeed when people who miswork the land, acting contrary to the laws of nature, complain afterwards that it is depleted and invent the law of diminishing returns,

   • 1984, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Ways and Means. Subcommittee on Public Assistance and Unemployment Compensation, Impact of Federal Budget Cuts on Emergency Food and Shelter Needs.:

     I find it absurd that because we miswork one case, we can lose what amounts to either $7 or $14 million in 1 fiscal year.

   • 2013, Kalman Flomenhaft, The Challenge of Family Therapy, page 185:

     One or another would come late, miswork the tape machine, help families make appointment times when they could not be taped, be unable to locate newly assigned families for a week or two, etc.

   • 2020, Norman Jones, Performance Management in the 21st Century:

     Hierarchies and a government that caters to them have given those who manage businesses every right to mismanage, and employees little right to miswork.

Noun

miswork (countable and uncountable, plural misworks)

1. A failure to operate properly; malfunction.
   • 1855, William Neilson, Mesmerism in Its Relation to Health and Disease, page 111:

     No doubt, if a member of every family knew how to mesmerize, and would apply the process when the first symptom of miswork in the organism appeared, physicians should have very little to do .

   • 1969, Bertil S. M. Granborg, Proceedings: Western Periodicals Company, page 119:

     The larger this allowance, the less the risk of conveyor shut-down due to miswork is, and the higher the possibility of increased production by increasing the conveyer speed became.

   • 2008, Laurence Miller, Counseling Crime Victims, page 292:

     Technological disasters involve the misworks of man: shipwrecks, plane crashes, building collapses, toxic spills, nuclear reactor leaks.

   • 2020, Yoji Akao, Hoshin Kanri: Policy Deployment for Successful TQM, page 31:

     Reduction of the reject rate (reduction of miswork)

2. Work that is inappropriate or badly done.
   • 1970, Swami Panrimalai, The Holy Panchakshara and Other Writings of Sri-La-Sri Panrimalai Swamigal, page 86:

     Miswork has to be avoided at all costs, as it does not contribute to the evolution of the soul.

   • 1988, Adolphus Edward Bridger, An Unknown Monograph on Depression:

     So far those who have come to me with that diagnosis have all been instances of miswork, and have mainly needed for their cure brain exercise of a more general kind.

   • 1988, Moirangthem Kirti Singh, Religion and Culture of Manipur, page 69:

     Sinpham onaba ( wrong choice of profession ) is a miswork representing the kind of work which is wrongly pursued.