mishap

Etymology

It is formed from English mis- + hap.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The OED thinks it may be modelled on Anglo-Norman meschance, also meschance, the source of mischance,^[2] and Hoad, Klein and Etymonline think this probable.^[8][9][3] The noun hap is from Old Norse happ (“chance, good luck”), from Proto-Germanic *hap-.^[3][2] The verb is a later formation with the same prefix, after the noun; compare the older mishappen.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bad luck, misfortune: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[2][4] Barnhart dates this before 1250^[4] and Etymonline to the middle of the 13th century,^[3] while Hoad and Dictionary.com give the 14th century,^[8][11] the date Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives for the sense of an accident.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a condition, bad luck, and only then single events.^[2][7] An unlucky accident is recorded before 1387, in Trevisa's Higden, where after Carthage's fall "fil meny myshappes",^[7][2] and Etymonline dates this sense to the middle of the 14th century.^[3] In Gower a raven's cry foretells some mishapp,^[7] and in Chaucer the word can be personified.^[12] The first sense is now rare,^[2] and negative phrases of the kind without mishap, recorded from 1587, carry the meaning of harm or damage.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) gave "ill chance; ill luck; calamity".^[13] The word was also a euphemism: the OED has a sexual misadventure in 1857,^[2] in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire a mishap was a miscarriage, and in Hampshire a mishap-child was an illegitimate child.^[14] Weekley called it a silly euphemism for a defeat, dating from the South African War.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – bad luck, misfortune.^[2]
• c. 1385 – verb, to happen unfortunately, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale.^[2]
• before 1387 – an unlucky accident; also the verb of a person, to meet with misfortune; both in Trevisa.^[2][7]
• 1587 – harm or injury, usually in negative contexts.^[2]
• 1857 – euphemistically, a sexual misadventure.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An unfortunate accident: A small mishap in the workshop cost him a thumbnail.^[16][6][2]
2. Harm or damage, usually in negative phrases: The convoy reached the port without mishap.^[2][5]
3. (archaic) Bad luck; misfortune.^[6][16][2]

Verb

1. (obsolete) To happen unfortunately.^[17][2]

Related words

• hap
• happen
• happy
• perhaps
• haphazard
• mischance

Usage notes

According to the OED, dictionaries gave only stress on the second syllable until the early 20th century; first-syllable stress appears as an option in the first edition of D. Jones's pronouncing dictionary (1917).^[2] Johnson marks the second syllable.^[13]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers