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miss

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Pronunciation

miss1 fail to hit

Etymology

To fail to hit is inherited from Middle English missen, inherited from Old English missan (“to fail to hit, miss a mark; escape notice”),[2][3][4] probably reinforced by the cognate Old Norse missa (“to miss, lack”).[2][3] It comes from Proto-Germanic *missijaną (“to go wrong”),[3] from *missa- (“in a changed manner, wrongly”),[3][5] the source of the prefix mis-.[4][6] Its cognates include Old Frisian missa, Dutch missen and German missen.[2][3][4] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *mei- (“to change, go, move”),[3][7] and Merriam-Webster relates it to Latin mūtāre (“to change”).[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fail to hit a mark: Old English missan, about 725 in Beowulf.[2][4] Middle English missen, “to fail to obtain”, is recorded probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle, and “to discover to be absent, to lack” in Layamon.[2]

Semantic evolution

Hoad dates “to fail to attain” to the 13th century, “to discover the absence of” to the 12th, and “to omit” to the 16th.[5] Trench notes that miss once meant “to do without”, as in Shakespeare's We cannot miss him in The Tempest.[9] The noun miss, “loss, lack”, is from Old English,[3][4] and “regret caused by loss or absence” from about 1200.[3][10] “A failure to hit” is from the 1550s.[3] A miss is as good as a mile (1761) was originally an inch in a miss is as good as an ell (1610s).[3][11] Of an engine, “to misfire” is a later sense.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – Old English missan (Beowulf).[2]
  • before 1200 – to fail to obtain; to notice the absence of.[2]
  • c. 1200 – noun, regret for a loss.[3]
  • 16th century – to omit.[5]
  • 1550s – noun, a failure to hit.[3]
  • 1761 – a miss is as good as a mile.[3]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To fail to hit, reach, catch or meet.
  2. To fail to notice, understand or experience.
  3. To fail to attend or do: missed the meeting.
  4. To leave out; to let slip.
  5. To avoid or escape: just missed being hit.
  6. To notice the absence or loss of; to feel the lack of.
  7. Of an engine, to misfire.

Noun

  1. A failure to hit or succeed.
  2. (give it a miss) A decision to avoid or skip something.

Word family

  • missing
  • missable
  • amiss

miss2 title of a girl or woman

Etymology

The title is a shortening of mistress.[2][3][7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A kept mistress or a prostitute: 1645, in Evelyn's Diary;[2][10] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged dates the noun to 1606.[8]

Semantic evolution

As a title before the name of an unmarried woman or girl it is first recorded in Pepys' Diary in 1666–67,[2][10] and as a term of address in Dryden in 1667.[2][13] By 1700 it also meant a young unmarried woman.[3] Miss Nancy, an effeminate man, is from 1824.[10][14] Misses as a trade term for sizes of girls' clothing is by 1880,[3] and Miss America, a title for the winner of a beauty contest, from 1922.[3][10]

Timeline

  • 1645 – a mistress, a prostitute (Evelyn).[2][10]
  • 1666 – a title before a name (Pepys).[2][10]
  • 1667 – a term of address (Dryden).[2]
  • c. 1700 – a young unmarried woman.[3]
  • 1824 – Miss Nancy.[10]
  • 1922 – Miss America.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (Miss) A title used before the name of a girl or unmarried woman.
  2. A polite form of address for a girl or young woman.
  3. A young unmarried woman or girl.
  4. (Miss) A title for a young woman chosen to represent a place: Miss World.
  • missis
  • missus
  • missy
  • mistress
  • mis-
  • mutate

Usage notes

The English Dialect Dictionary records miss in Leicestershire for the eldest daughter of a family.[14] A colloquial miss, short for miscarriage, is from 1897.[10][4]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  8. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  13. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  14. ^ a b 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)