To misrepresent something means to describe it in a way that's incorrect or misleading, whether by accident or on purpose. When a newspaper misrepresents what a politician said by quoting them out of context, readers get a distorted picture of what really happened. When someone misrepresents their skills on a job application, they're claiming they can do things they actually can't.

Misrepresentation is the act of misrepresenting. A misrepresentation can be small, like accidentally describing your friend's science project incorrectly when telling another classmate about it. Or it can be serious, like a company misrepresenting what's in their product. In law, misrepresentation can even be grounds for a lawsuit: if someone sells you something by misrepresenting its condition (saying a bicycle works perfectly when they know the brakes are broken), they've done something dishonest that causes real harm.

The key difference between misrepresentation and an honest mistake is often whether someone had a duty to be accurate and whether the distorted information matters. If you accidentally tell someone the wrong time for a movie, that's just a mistake. But if you're a real estate agent and you misrepresent the size of a house to make a sale, that's serious misrepresentation because people are making big decisions based on what you say.