misdrive

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ drive

Verb

misdrive (third-person singular simple present misdrives, present participle misdriving, simple past misdrove, past participle misdriven)

1. (transitive, intransitive, rare) To drive badly or wrongly.
   • 1857, Thomas Baker, The Steam-engine, Or, The Powers of Flame, page 93:

     Nightly it blazed, and waved its fiery tail,
     And made the dreaded Ursa Major quail;
     Destined but once before her fear to prove,
     When Phaeton the Solar car misdrove.

   • 2009, Armando Iannucci, The Audacity of Hype:

     It removes culpability from any distortion and makes anything, no matter how heinous, a complete accident. A drunk driver who crashes a car into someone can now apologise for miscounting his alcohol intake before going on to misdrive into someone he mistook for a road.