misbegotten

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ begotten

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɒtn̩/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɑtn̩/

Adjective

misbegotten (comparative more misbegotten, superlative most misbegotten)

1. (of a person) Born out of wedlock; illegitimate.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], page 57, column 2:

     But as the Deuill would haue it, three miſ-be-gotten Knaues, in Kendall Greene, came at my Back, […]

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     “Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. “What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my child—yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it.”

2. (by extension, figuratively) Ill-conceived.
   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “Cabin Boy”, in The A.V. Club:

     Many of the strangest, most misbegotten studio films of the last 20 years have been comedies, perhaps because middle-aged executives have no comprehension of what the younger generation finds funny.

3. (by extension) Bad; worthless.
   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:

     Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me—something seizing, surprising and revolting—this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; […]

   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 82:

     "Do they not sneakingly bestow on me their crass inability to do anything with their own misbegotten progeny, a subterfuge which I scornfully fub off on text-books?"

   • 1994, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, page 5:

     There was the guy I spent a misbegotten night with who said he'd call me and never did but came to the party anyway, and I felt primed for a confrontation.

Translations

of a person: born out of wedlock — see illegitimate

by figurative extension: ill-conceived — see ill-conceived

Verb

misbegotten

1. past participle of misbeget

Noun

misbegotten (plural misbegotten)

1. (obsolete, sometimes derogatory) One born illegitimately (i.e., out of wedlock); a bastard.
2. (loosely, in the plural) A person born into infelicitous circumstances.
   • 1973, Philippa Foot, “Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values”, in Robert C. Solomon, Garden City, New York, editors, Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Books, →ISBN, page 161:

     By preserving the incapable and “misbegotten”, and by insisting that they be the object of compassionate attention, it would cause even the strong to be infected with gloom and nihilism.

Translations

one born out of wedlock — see bastard

people, considered as a class, born into infelicitous circumstances

• French: misérables (fr) m pl or f pl

See also

• misbeget
• misbegetten
• misbegot

References

• OED (3rd ed., June 2002), “misbegotten, n. and adj.”