Misplace

[Baker, John]

        The latest OED appeals list includes an appeal for "misplace" (to
lose, mislay) antedate 1989.  Is this just an Americanism?  I've long used
the word in that sense (although the sense of placing wrongly, as in
"misplaced trust," is perhaps more familiar) and had no trouble finding a
significant antedating:

>>That said recovery at law was against equity, and by reason of a defect in
the petitioner's law title; arising from the accident of the Court of
Probate's having omitted to give an order to sell said land, or of said
orders having been misplaced or lost.<<

Gay v. Adams, Bates, 1 Root 105 (Conn. Super. 1786).


John Baker