Meaning

noun a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention

noun an understanding of something that is not correct

noun part of a statement that is not correct

originFrom Middle English mistaken, from Old Norse mistaka (“to take in error, to miscarry”); equivalent to mis- + take. Cognate with Icelandic mistaka (“to mistake”), Swedish missta (“to mistake”) (before apocope misstaga). The noun, which replaced earlier mistaking, is derived from the verb. Compare Swedish misstag (“mistake”, noun), Faroese mistak (“mitake”, noun), Icelandic mistak (“mistake”, noun).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0