From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmisdirectmis‧di‧rect /ˌmɪsdəˈrekt, -daɪ-/ verb [transitive] 1 formalUSE something to use your effort, energy, abilities etc on doing the wrong thing Without well-defined goals, it is likely that efforts will be misdirected. Their criticism is misdirected.2 SCTif a judge misdirects a jury (=the group of people who decide a legal case), he or she gives them incorrect information about the law3 formalWAY/ROUTE to send someone or something to the wrong placebe misdirected to something Our mail was misdirected to the wrong street.Grammar Misdirect is usually passive. —misdirection /-ˈrekʃən/ noun [uncountable]→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
misdirect• I suggest his outrage is misdirected.• Such efforts are, we believe, misdirected.• You have the gift of a sense of humour, but with you it's misdirected.• Wyche's ideas may be misdirected at times but we need people like him.• From Lovell's Marxist perspective the feminist debates outlined above are misdirected for a variety of reasons.• Their essential feature is that they misdirect the enemy's attack, so that it fails to damage any vital organs.• His conviction was quashed on appeal in 1994 on the grounds that the trial judge misdirected the jury.• I'd hoped the shock would, at the very least, cause her to misdirect the stream and wet her shoes.• It is an anger they misdirect toward Los Angeles, or poor people, or immigrants. 