English edit

Etymology edit

From Latin missa (Mass) + -ficare (to make) (comparative). See -fy.

Verb edit

missificate (third-person singular simple present missificates, present participle missificating, simple past and past participle missificated)

  1. (obsolete, nonce word) To perform Mass.
    • 1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty [], London: [] E[dward] G[riffin] for Iohn Rothwell, [], →OCLC:
      Do ye not understand him ? What can be gathered hence , but that the prelate would still sacrifice ? Conceive him , readers : he would missificate.
    • 1653, François Rabelais, translated by Thomas Urquhart, Gargantua and Pantagruel:
      It was well the Sienese had untrussed his points , and let down his drawers : for this physic worked with him as soon as he took it ; and as copious was the evacuation as that of nine buffaloes and fourteen missificating arch - lubbers

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for missificate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)