4th Grade spelling
4th Grade Words With the Prefix Mis
Words with the prefix mis: mistake, misplaced, misuse, mistrust, misread. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with answers.
Read the spelling list
The pattern: Mis means wrongly or badly: misspell, misplace. Each word is mis plus a real base word.
Mis is a prefix that means wrongly or badly. To misread is to read wrongly, to mistrust is to trust badly or not at all, and to misuse something is to use it the wrong way. Like most prefixes, it joins a base word without changing anything: mis plus place is misplace, mis plus lead is mislead. The only trap is a base that starts with s, as in misspell, where both s letters stay.
Nineteen words appear on this list, from everyday ones such as mistake, mistaken, misuse and misread to richer ones like misleading, misguided, misfortune and mistreated. Some forms are irregular: mistake becomes mistook rather than mistaked, and the list includes both so students can see the pattern bend. Fourth graders already know un and re; mis is the next prefix with a clear, negative meaning that appears constantly in reading.
19 entries. Our solver needed 1.5 wrong guesses on average: 11 easy, 7 medium and 1 hard. The toughest is misled (5 misses), the quickest misleading (0).
- mistake Easy · 1
- mistakes Easy · 1
- mistaken Easy · 1
- misleading Easy · 0
- misconduct Easy · 1
- misuse Medium · 2
- misguided Easy · 0
- misplaced Easy · 0
- misfortune Easy · 0
- misled Hard · 5
- mislead Medium · 2
- mismatch Medium · 2
- mistook Medium · 2
- mistrust Medium · 4
- mistreated Easy · 0
- misused Medium · 4
- misfits Medium · 2
- mistaking Easy · 1
- misread Easy · 0
Words worth a closer look
- mistakeMis plus take. The e on the end drops in mistaken and mistaking, which makes a good talking point about adding endings.
- mistookThe past tense of mistake. Students often write mistaked.
- misplacedMis plus placed. The e of place stays because the ending ed only needs one more letter.
- misfortuneMis plus fortune. The longest regular word here: mis-for-tune.
- misreadSame spelling as the past tense. Say it aloud both ways, reed and red, to show how context fixes the sound.
Teaching it
Ask students to cover mis and say what is left. Place, use, lead, trust, match and read all stand alone, and the word's meaning is a small calculation: wrongly plus the base. Common spelling errors are a single s in mispell or a drifting vowel in mistrust, and the best fix is to say the two parts separately. Mistake is a good exception to talk about: it has a base, take, but you cannot see it until you know mistook and mistaken belong to the same family.
In hangman, the word begins with m, i, s each time, so give students that and let them guess the base. Use the printable to ask students to rewrite five sentences by swapping mis words for phrases such as read wrongly or used badly.
Print a 4th Grade Words With the Prefix Mis worksheet
Eight puzzles on one US Letter page, with a clue, letter blanks, an empty frame to draw in, an alphabet strip to cross off and circles to count misses. Page two is the answer key.
Need another sheet?
Draw eight different words from this list, right here. Same layout, new answer key.
Keep going
- 4th Grade Words Ending in TionSpell the /shun/ ending with tion: information, education, position and more. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with answers.
- 4th Grade Words Ending in SionWords ending in sion: decision, television, vision, session and mansion-type sounds. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with answers.
- 4th Grade Words With the Prefix PreWords with the prefix pre: preview, prehistoric, prefix, precaution and more. Play hangman with the list or print a spelling worksheet with answers.
- 4th Grade Words Ending in MentWords ending in ment: government, development, agreement, equipment and more. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with answers.
- 4th Grade Words Ending in Able and IbleWords ending in able and ible: comfortable, reliable, possible, visible. Play hangman with the list or print a worksheet with answers.
- 4th Grade Words Ending in OusWords ending in ous: dangerous, famous, nervous, delicious, generous. Play hangman with the list or print a spelling worksheet with answers.