To mislead means to cause someone to believe something that isn't true, either by giving false information or by leaving out important facts. When you mislead someone, you're leading them in the wrong direction, like giving bad directions to a friend so they get lost.

A misleading statement might be technically true but arranged in a way that creates a false impression. If a cereal box shows a huge bowl overflowing with fruit but the actual cereal contains only tiny dried bits, that image is misleading. If someone asks whether you finished your homework and you say “I worked on it for an hour” without mentioning that you didn't actually finish, you've misled them by answering a different question than the one they asked.

Sometimes people mislead others on purpose, like a magician who misleads your eyes to make you look the wrong way during a trick. Other times, someone might mislead you accidentally by sharing information they thought was correct but wasn't.

Being misled feels frustrating because you made decisions based on faulty information. If a friend misleads you about when a party starts, you might show up at the wrong time, miss something important, or feel embarrassed.