missive

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French missive, recorded from 1454 in lettre missive, and partly borrowed from Medieval Latin missīvus (“sent”),^[2][3] as in litterae missīvae (“letters sent”), a phrase recorded from 1251 and frequent in British documents from the mid-14th to the mid-16th century.^[2][4][5] The Medieval Latin adjective is formed from missus, the past participle of mittō (“to send”), and the suffix -īvus.^[5][6][7] The noun began as a shortening of letter missive,^[2][8][9] after the Middle French phrase, whose adjective was used as a noun from 1465.^[2][3] It is related to mission and missile.^[10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, in letter missive: a letter from a superior authority, especially the monarch, giving a command, recommendation or permission, 1444, in the Proceedings of the Privy Council.^[2][10] The noun, a written message or letter, is first recorded in Gavin Douglas's Palice of Honour (written about 1501, printed about 1553).^[2][10] Etymonline dates the noun to about 1500.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and 16th centuries the adjective meant "sent" in general,^[2] and by 1548 it was also used of weapons that are thrown or shot, a sense Johnson (1755) illustrated with Dryden's "missive weapons" and which died out about 1800, when missile took its place.^[2][11][6] The noun was at first mainly Scottish,^[6][2] and Johnson noted that it was "retained in Scotland" for a letter sent.^[11] In Scots law a missive is a letter exchanged by the parties to a contract, from 1508,^[2] and a missive of lease or missive of tack was a provisional lease before the formal one was drawn up.^[12] In general use the word now means a letter, especially a long or official one, often with a humorous or ironic tone.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1444 – letter missive, a letter from a superior authority.^[2][10]
• before 1450 – adjective, sent, sent on an errand (obsolete by 1830).^[2]
• c. 1501 – noun, a written message, a letter.^[2][10]
• 1508 – noun, in Scots law, a letter exchanged by the parties to a contract.^[2]
• 1548 – adjective, of a weapon, thrown or shot as a missile (obsolete by 1798).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A letter or written message, especially a long, formal or official one: The committee sent a three-page missive to every member.^[13][3][2]
2. (Scots law) A letter exchanged between the parties to a contract, usually about property.^[2][3]

Adjective

1. (rare) Sent, or intended to be sent; used chiefly in letter missive, a letter from a superior authority.^[13][3][2]
2. (obsolete, 1548–1798) Of a weapon, that can be thrown or shot as a missile.^[2][3][11]

Word family

• letter missive

Related words

• mission
• missile
• message
• emit
• transmit

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 f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins