miss

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /mɪs/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪs

Etymology 1

From Middle English missen, from Old English missan (“to miss, escape the notice of a person”), from Proto-West Germanic *missijan, from Proto-Germanic *missijaną (“to miss, go wrong, fail”), from Proto-Indo-European *meytH- (“to change, exchange, trade”). Cognate with West Frisian misse (“to miss”), Dutch missen (“to miss”), German missen (“to miss”), Norwegian Bokmål and Danish miste (“to lose”), Swedish missa (“to miss”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Icelandic missa (“to lose”).

Verb

miss (third-person singular simple present misses, present participle missing, simple past and past participle missed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To fail to hit.

   I missed the target.

   I tried to kick the ball, but missed.

   • 1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. , 3rd edition, London: William Rawley; rinted by J H for William Lee , →OCLC:

     Men observe when things hit, and not when they miss.

   • 1666, Edmund Waller, "Instructions to a Painter:

     Flying bullets now,
     To execute his rage, appear too slow;
     They miss, or sweep but common souls away.

2. (transitive) To fail to achieve or attain.

   to miss an opportunity

   • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. , London: Eliz Holt, for Thomas Basset, , →OCLC:

     When a man misses his great end, happiness, he will acknowledge he judged not right.

3. (transitive) To avoid; to escape.

   The car just missed hitting a passer-by.

4. (transitive) To become aware of the loss or absence of; to feel the want or need of, sometimes with regret.

   I miss you! Come home soon!

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, .”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J. M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 58:

     […] what by me thou haſt loſt thou leaſt ſhalt miſs.

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC:

     The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits. He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. Nobody would miss them, he explained.

5. (transitive) To fail to understand;

   miss the joke

6. (transitive) To fail to notice; to have a shortcoming of perception; overlook.

   So I'm just going over my early notes, see if I missed anything.

7. (transitive) To fail to attend.

   Joe missed the meeting this morning.

8. (transitive) To be late for something (a means of transportation, a deadline, etc.).

   I missed the plane!

9. (transitive) To be wanting; to lack something that should be present.

   The car is missing essential features.

10. (transitive, slang) To spare someone of something unwanted or undesirable.

    Miss me with that nonsense!

11. (poker, said of a card) To fail to help the hand of a player.

    Player A: J7. Player B: Q6. Table: 283. The flop missed both players!

12. (sports) To fail to score (a goal).
    • 2011 September 18, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia”, in BBC Sport:

      Georgia, ranked 16th in the world, dominated the breakdown before half-time and forced England into a host of infringements, but fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili missed three penalties.

13. (intransitive, obsolete) To go wrong; to err.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 2:

      Emongst the Angels, a whole legione / Of wicked Sprights did fall from happy blis; / What wonder then, if one of women all did mis?

14. (intransitive, obsolete) To be absent, deficient, or wanting.
    • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

      What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Usage notes

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of "to fail to hit"): hit, strike, impinge on, run into, collide with
• (antonym(s) of "to feel the absence of"): have, feature

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English misse, mis, from Old English miss (“loss, absence”), from Proto-West Germanic *miss, from Proto-Germanic *miss- (“loss”). Cognate with Scots miss (“a loss, want, cause of grief or mourning”), Middle High German misse, mis (“lack, missing, absence”), Icelandic missir (“loss”). Related also to Scots mis (“wrongdoing, sin, guilt”), Dutch mis (“misdeed, wrongdoing, mistake”), Middle Low German misse (“sin, wrong”).

Noun

miss (plural misses)

1. A failure to hit.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 76:

     "I ran from one place to another, and as it was not difficult to get a shot at him, I fired several times, but only made miss after miss."

2. A failure to obtain or accomplish.
3. An act of avoidance (usually used with the verb give)

   I think I’ll give the meeting a miss.

4. (computing) The situation where an item is not found in a cache and therefore needs to be explicitly loaded.
   • 1999, Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Operating Systems:

     Already we're seeing fewer cache misses by avoiding creating cache entries for the idle task and expect to see even fewer with changes to the TLB reload code to uncache the page tables.

5. (obsolete) Error, fault; misdeed, wrongdoing, sin.
6. (obsolete) Hurt or harm from a mistake or accident.
7. (obsolete) Loss, lack want; hence, the feeling of loss.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

From mistress.

Alternative forms

• Miss
• meess, Meess (archaic, eye dialect)

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

miss

Wikipedia

miss (countable and uncountable, plural misses)

1. A title of respect for a young woman (usually unmarried) with or without a name used.

   You may sit here, miss.

   You may sit here, Miss Jones.

2. An unmarried woman; a girl.
   • 1771, James Cawthorn, Poems, by the Rev. Mr. Cawthorn, Late Master of Tunbridge School‎:

     While thus the fiends, with wily art, Adroitly stole upon the heart, And with their complaisance, and tales, Had ruind more than half the males, Gay Vanity, with smiles, and kisses, Was busy 'mongst the maids, and misses.

3. A kept woman; a mistress.
   • 1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. , London: Jo Martyn, and Ja Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, , →OCLC:

     courting a Miss

4. (card games) In the game of three-card loo, an extra hand, dealt on the table, which may be substituted for the hand dealt to a player.

Coordinate terms

• (titles) (of a man): Mr (Mister, mister), Sir (sir); (of a woman): Ms (Miz, mizz), Mrs (Mistress, mistress), Miss (miss), Dame (dame), Madam (madam, ma'am); (of a non-binary person): Mx (Mixter); (see also): Dr (Doctor, doctor) ^{(Category: en:Titles)}

Derived terms

Related terms

• missis, missus
• missy

Translations

Anagrams

• ISMS, MSIs, SIMS, Sims, isms, sims

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian)

Noun

miss f (plural misses)

1. beauty queen

Dutch

Etymology 1

From English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪs/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

miss f (plural missen, diminutive missje n)

1. A winner of a beauty contest.

   Annelien Coorevits was Miss België in 2007.

   Annelien Coorevits was Miss Belgium in 2007.

2. A beauty.
3. A girl with a high self-esteem.

   Dat is nogal een miss, hoor.

   She has some air.

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Alternative forms

• mss

Adverb

miss

1. (Internet slang, text messaging) Abbreviation of misschien (“maybe”).

German

Alternative forms

• miß (superseded)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪs

Verb

miss

1. singular imperative of messen

Maltese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪs/

Verb

miss

1. second-person singular imperative of mess

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

miss

1. imperative of missa

Old English

Alternative forms

• mis — late Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *miss, from Proto-Germanic *miss- (“loss, want”), from Proto-Indo-European *meytH- (“to change, replace”). Cognate with Old Norse missir, missa (“loss”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miss/,

Noun

miss n

1. loss

Declension

Related terms

• mis-
• misċan
• missan

Descendants

• Middle English: mis, mys, misse, mysse (merged with Old Norse missir, missa)
  • English: miss
  • Scots: mis, miss

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English Miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mis/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -is
• Syllabification: miss

Noun

miss f (indeclinable)

1. beauty queen

Further reading

• miss in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• miss in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Noun

miss f (plural miss)

1. miss

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmis/
• Rhymes: -is
• Syllabification: miss
• Homophone: mis

Noun

miss f (plural misses, masculine míster, masculine plural místeres)

1. Miss, beauty queen (winner in a female beauty contest)

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “miss”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Anagrams

• sims

Swedish

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

Noun

miss c

1. A failure to hit.
2. A mistake.
3. (rare) A beauty; a winner of a beauty contest.

   Miss Hawaii gick vidare och vann Miss America-tävlingen

   Miss Hawaii went on to win the Miss America contest

Declension

Synonyms

• (failure to hit): bom
• (mistake): misstag
• (beauty): skönhetsmiss