mistake

To understand wrongly, taking one thing or person for another.transitive

• Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.
• Don't mistake my kindness for weakness.

To misunderstand (someone).obsoletetransitive

• Miſtake me not, my Lord, ’tis not my meaning / To raze one Title of your Honour out.
• […] at last she so evidently demonstrated her Affection to him to be much stronger than what she bore her own Son, that it was impossible to mistake her any longer.

To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.intransitiveobsolete

• 1720, Jonathan Swift, “Letter to a Young Clergyman” in The Works of Jonathan Swift, London: Charles Elliot, 1784, Volume 10, pp. 6-7, No gentleman thinks it is safe or prudent to send a servant with a message, without repeating it more than

To take or choose wrongly.obsoleterare

• The better act of purposes mistook / Is to mistake again; though indirect, / Yet indirection thereby grows direct,
• The Spear with erring Haste mistook its way, But plung’d in Eniopeus’ Bosom lay.

An error.

• There were too many mistakes in the test that, unfortunately, made you fail.
• He always made mistakes on purpose.

A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard-to-hit location, but instead ends up in an easy-to-hit place.