Wiktionary

miss

See also: Miss, miß, Miß, miss-, miß-, and Miss.

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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

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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; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] 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
  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!
  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.
  14. (intransitive, obsolete) To be absent, deficient, or wanting.
Usage notes
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Antonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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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

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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
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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From mistress.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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[1]:
      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.
  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
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Miss — see Miss

Anagrams

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Catalan

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English miss.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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miss f (plural misses)

  1. beauty queen

Dutch

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Etymology 1

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From English miss.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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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

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See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Alternative forms

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Adverb

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miss

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

German

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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miss

  1. singular imperative of messen

Maltese

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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miss

  1. second-person singular imperative of mess

Norwegian Nynorsk

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Verb

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miss

  1. imperative of missa

Old English

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Alternative forms

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  • mis — late Old English

Etymology

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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

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Noun

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miss n

  1. loss

Declension

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Declension of miss (strong a-stem)
Case Singular Plural
nominative miss miss
accusative miss miss
genitive misses missa
dative misse missum
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Descendants

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

Polish

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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miss f (indeclinable)

  1. beauty queen

Further reading

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

Romanian

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Noun

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miss f (plural miss)

  1. miss (title)

Spanish

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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

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

Usage notes

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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

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Anagrams

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Swedish

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Related to the verb missa. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Also from English miss?.

Noun

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miss c

  1. A failure to hit.
  2. A mistake.
Declension
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Declension of miss 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative miss missen missar missarna
Genitive miss missens missars missarnas
Synonyms
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Etymology 2

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Borrowed from English miss in such titles as Miss America and Miss Universe.

Noun

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miss c

  1. (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
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Declension of miss 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative miss missen missar missarna
Genitive miss missens missars missarnas

Etymology 3

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Onomatopoeic

Interjection

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miss

  1. (rare) Used to call a cat
    Synonym: kiss
Derived terms
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