misfavor

• misfavour

From mis- +‎ favor.

• IPA^(key): /mɪsˈfeɪvə(ɹ)/

misfavor (third-person singular simple present misfavors, present participle misfavoring, simple past and past participle misfavored)

1. To dislike or disapprove of; to view with displeasure or dislike.
   • 1948, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Banking and Currency, National Stabilization, page 573:

     I do not misfavor a general freeze now.

   • 1964, Francis van Wyck Mason, Rascals' Heaven, page 269:

     I misfavor the bearin' o' yon micos," MacPherson muttered out of a corner of his mouth as the first Creek leaders strode out over burned brown grass on the square fronting the House of Strangers.

   • 2006, Vickie Cleverley Speek, God Has Made Us a Kingdom: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons, page 271:

     She never would name any particular items as the one she thought might have been misfavored by the heavenly father, but she named three or four things any one of which might have been contrary to God's will, but positively refused to name one for herself.

2. To disadvantage or exhibit bias against.

misfavor (countable and uncountable, plural misfavors)

1. Disapproval or antipathy; disfavor.
   • 1972, Loyola of Los Angeles law review - Volume 5, page 83:

     The spoils system may well be the primary explanation for administrative unwillingness to take any action which would curry political misfavor.

   • 1991, Jonathan Kusel, Well-being in Forest-dependent Communities, page 198:

     Indeed only a handful of citizens opposed the project; and we were the target of much public criticism and misfavor.

   • 2001, Martin Harry Greenberg, 100 wicked witch stories, page 537:

     The fools charge her with diabolical trafficking, believing her misfortune the result of divine misfavor!

2. A disservice or detriment.
   • 1953, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services, Full Committee Hearings on H.R. 4495, page 559:

     And one of the prices of specialization is the realization by a specialist of how important he may be to some city, because some city I think does him a misfavor sometimes by making him believe that he is a man of consequence more than he maybe really, actually is.

   • 1992, Children's Literature Review - Volume 28, page 53:

     The book is a great misfavor to the mysterious, exciting , and even elegant squid.

   • 2013, M. Robert Gardner, On Trying To Teach: The Mind in Correspondence, page 152:

     Following a cursory audition requiring my singing an octave while Miss Dubois was playing it on the piano—a procedure stacked in my misfavor since I had recently learned to play the piano—I was chosen for the role of Captain, a role, that unfortunately, as I was soon to learn, requires more than an octave.

3. (rare) Inappropriate approval.
   • 1938, Henry Nelson Wieman, Walter Marshall Horton, The Growth of Religion - Volume 61, page 404:

     Just now we are passing through a period when many religious people are deliberately repudiating reason as a way to the goodness of God. These radical swings back and forth between misfavor and disfavor of reason are disruptive to the growth of genuine high religion.

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