misgrab

English

Etymology

From mis- +‎ grab.

Pronunciation

• (noun) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪsɡɹæb/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /mɪsˈɡɹæb/

Noun

misgrab (plural misgrabs)

1. A failed attempt to grab something.
   • 1903, Forest and Stream - Volume 61, page 215:

     He hauls in the twenty yards of it in frantic haste, making many a misgrab and getting more excited, I'll warrant, than he ever was with any but his first bear.

   • 1916, Supreme Court Appellate Division Second Department, page 667:

     I made a misgrab and it touched the saw and flew up.

   • 1938, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, page 127:

     All this helped, but nevertheless it was a hazardous undertaking. A slip or a misgrab and he would fall under his own engine.

   • 2007, Karl Schroeder, Sun of Suns, page 141:

     All around was nothing but air, the endless abyss of Virga; a misgrab here would send you on a slow trip around the world, with the birds, bugs, and fish making a moving feast of you along the way.

2. (figurative) A mistake.
   • 1964, William J. Danker, Two Worlds Or None: Rediscovering Missions, page 91:

     It is easy for the American visitor to make a “misgrab” here because, blinded by the surface similarities, he fails to take the hidden differences into consideration.

   • 2019, Chaz Bufe, Dan Arel, Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief:

     Unfortunately, notwithstanding all his wisdom, he had made a misgrab, for Noah, the chief of the saved, was soon unmasked as a drunken sot who disported with his own daughters.

Verb

misgrab (third-person singular simple present misgrabs, present participle misgrabbing, simple past and past participle misgrabbed)

1. To fail in an attempt to grab something
   • 2003, Aaron Rubin, Sports Injuries and Emergencies: A Quick Response Manual, page 130:

     […] misgrabbing or catching an apparatus or opponent

   • 2007, Geoff Wyss, Tiny Clubs, page 116:

     Schliemann misgrabbed his cup to toast the deal, and its toppled plastic cylinder rolled spillessly from side to side in the valley of his tray.

   • 2019, Jiří Pelán, Bohumil Hrabal. A Full-length Portrait, page 22:

     ... it's always some trusting young volunteer who misgrabs a burning wire with his tongs, misturns the thirsty steel and flies in a beautiful ten-metre red arc into the black air

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