misfinger

English

Etymology

From mis- +‎ finger.

Verb

misfinger (third-person singular simple present misfingers, present participle misfingering, simple past and past participle misfingered)

1. (music) To make a mistake in the finger positions when playing an instrument, resulting in a wrong note.
   • 1893 June, Herbert J. Krew, “A Music Teacher's Duty From the Standpoint of an Intelligent Pupil”, in Theodore Presser, editor, Etude: The Music Magazine, volume 11, number 6, page 129:

     The pupil comes for his lesson and possibly has not thoroughly learned some part of it; he does not keep the time true, misfingers, strikes wrong notes, or, to take a milder illustration, does not feel the balance of the parts, does not divine the meaning of the composer, does not appreciate the beauty of the unity of the work as a whole, has not, in fact, "finished" it;

   • 2000, Patricia Fanthorpe, Death: The Final Mystery, page 119:

     If Holmes misfingers a note on one of the violin strings, that is merely some small fault within the unified organisation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson Incorporated.

   • 2001, Teresa DesJardien, The Marriage Masquerade, page 49:

     The dancers had started on a third pass when Lady Lucianne piped a sour note. She blushed and laughed at her own mistake, interrupting her playing and causing Victor to misfinger his part as well.

   • 2009, Stanley Crouch, Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz:

     This means that if he misfingers and is thrown a distance from his intended note, he can continue from where he is, even if the note results in a modulation that takes him into another key.

2. To misplace the hands or fingers when typing, resulting in errors in the resulting text.
   • 1959, The Balance Sheet - Volume 41, page 48:

     Each one watched the one at the machine and didn't allow any misfingering. Very quickly they learned the touch method for the middle row.

   • 1990, Michigan Employment Relations Commission, MERC Labor Opinions, page 303:

     The Charging Party contended that the only problem she had concerned misfingering on the first day use of the word processor.

   • 2000, John Christopher Jones, The Internet and Everyone, page 123:

     BUt now, not wanting to drift from my intentions I look to some notes I made yesterday. And I retype that as 'but now' for I don't wish to perpetuate every misfingering.

3. To unthinkingly or accidentally touch someone or something one should not.
   • 1966, Chess Review, page 334:

     The causes? Overconfidence? Misfingering? Disbelief that anything serious could happen, by that opponent, so early?

   • 2012, Will Self, Great Apes: Reissued, page 236:

     I'm sorry, I misfingered, Dr Bowen shows me simian contact is disturbing to you.

4. To fumble or place something incorrectly due to poor coordination of the fingers.
   • 1907, The British Printer - Volume 20, page 173:

     I was soon able to set sentences of three or four words without a thought of looking at the board, and the habit of reading the matrices as they assembled in the box, which I cultivated, now enables me to “spot" a transposition, or even a misfinger, or a matrix running in wrong channel, quite easily.

   • 2007, Michael Frayn, Collected Columns, page 46:

     DUKE: Alas! Methinks I have misfinger'd it! FERDINAND: Sire, bend thou down thine aged frame And do thou smartly pluck it up again.