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Miss the mark

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Miss the mark means to fail to achieve a goal, target, or expectation; thematically, it explores disappointment, error, or misalignment, highlighting gaps between intention and outcome.

Detailed Definition
Miss the mark means to fail to achieve the intended aim, effect, standard, or truth. In poetry, the idiom has strong relevance to craft, because a poem may miss the mark in tone, image, rhythm, or emotional accuracy. It also suits moral, romantic, political, or spiritual failure. The archery image suggests aim, judgement, and distance between intention and result. A poet may use it to explore human fallibility, miscommunication, failed ambition, or the difficulty of saying precisely what matters.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about ambition might say the archer's arrow missed the mark, though his aim was noble; In satire, the preacher's sermon misses the mark by scolding the poor instead of the greedy; The phrase means to fail to achieve the intended result; A poet can use it for judgement, love, argument, or art.
Additional Notes
Miss the mark means fail to achieve the intended aim. The idiom comes from archery or shooting, where the mark is the target. In poetry, it can describe failed love, bad judgement, ineffective language, moral error, or artistic weakness. It pairs well with arrows, bulls-eyes, distance, hands, and sight. Students should consider whether the failure is technical, emotional, ethical, or interpretative.
Also Known As
fail Fall short
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