mispunch

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ punch

Verb

mispunch (third-person singular simple present mispunches, present participle mispunching, simple past and past participle mispunched)

1. To punch the wrong key or button on a keyboard, keypad, keypunch, or similar device.
   • 1967, Edmund Addison Bowles, Computers in Humanistic Research: Readings and Perspectives, page 95:

     Unlike the computer, the researcher may very well tire of running regression coefficients after the first dozen or two, and begin to misread his data or mispunch the buttons on his desk calculator.

   • 1996, Holmes F. Crouch, Irma J. Crouch, Winning Your Audit, page 2-9:

     IRS operators mispunch computer keys all the time.

   • 2012, Joseph Frein, Handbook of Construction Management and Organization, page 460:

     There are ample opportunities to omit data or make incorrect entries on the coding sheets or to transpose or mispunch data on the keypunch.

   • 2015, Tom Bassarear, Meg Moss, Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers, page 278:

     No, you did not mispunch the calculator. Yes, you really will pay that much for the house!

2. To punch a hole in the wrong place.
   • 1904 May, J.T.J., “A Flue Hole Cutter That Cuts”, in Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way, volume 10, page 16:

     As will be seen by the accompanying sketch to use this cutter, it is not necessary to punch any holes in sheet before taken to drill press. All that is required is ordinary center punch mark, thereby saving time and labor, also avoiding the liability of workman spoiling the sheet by mispunched hole.

   • 1975, Decisions and Orders of the National Labor Relations Board, page 315:

     Nevertheless, within 4 weeks of the transfer, a written warning was issued to Linnet, dated Friday, January 5, "1972," (an apparent typographical error), stating that Linnet in the last 3 weeks mispunched an excessive number of holes, requiring welding, grinding, and repunching;

   • 2004, Jeff Hecht, City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics:

     It was not an easy task because input had to be submitted to the computer center punched on five-hole paper tape, and a single mispunched hole could stop the program, yielding only a cryptic error message hours later.

3. To punch a ball or similar object so that it does not go to the intended destination.
   • 2006, Voices of the Armory, page P-110:

     Four of us stood behind the baseline while two crouched at the net (expecting at any moment to get hit by an errant serve or mispunched volley).

   • 2012, Simon Lowe, Wolves Match of My Life:

     Another training routine I picked up and adapted was using a punchball to practise timing my clearing punches for crosses which could not be held. I became like a boxer, I had to really, because I wouldn't afford to mispunch in our own goalmouth.

Noun

mispunch (plural mispunches)

1. An act or result of mispunching (any sense).
   • 1978, National Bureau of Standards, Computer Science and Statistics: Tenth Annual Symposium on the Interface, page 261:

     What happens when a mispunch is found in an input record?

   • 1984, Tony Waiters, Coaching to Win, page 187:

     Therefore, a two-handed punch gives a greater contact area than a one-handed, and reduces the chances of a mispunch ( see illustration 216 ).

   • 2009, William K. Michener, James W. Brunt, Ecological Data: Design, Management and Processing, page 83:

     Upon removal of the mispunch and reanalysis, two other points in this data set emerge as possible outliers.

   • 2017, Birgitta Lindros Wohl, Terracotta Lamps II: 1967-2004, page 76:

     The interior ring on the disk occurs very occasionally on Howland's types 52B, C, and E. (Agora IV, pp. 181–185, 186–188); in this case it may simply be the result of a mispunch of the central filling-hole.

   • 2014, Carol McNeill, Orienteering: Skills- Techniques- Training:

     If you have an 'mp', or mispunch, it means you went to a wrong control, or missed one out, and are, unfortunately, disqualified.