miss

English Online Dictionary. What means miss‎? What does miss mean?

English

Pronunciation

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

Etymology 1

Verb 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 *meyth₂- (“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, Icelandic missa (“to lose”) and Latin mittere (“to send, let go”).

Noun 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”).

Verb

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

2. (ambitransitive, physical) To fail to hit, catch, grasp, etc.
3. (ambitransitive, physical) To avoid hitting.

5. (transitive) To fail to achieve or attain.
7. (transitive) To fail to experience, attend, partake, take advantage of, etc.

9. (transitive) To avoid or escape.

11. (transitive) To become aware of the loss or absence of; to feel the want or need of, sometimes with regret; to feel sadness at the absence of somebody or something.
13. (transitive) To fail to understand.

    Antonym: catch

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

17. (transitive) To be too late to connect with or meet something or someone (a means of transportation, a deadline, etc.).
19. (transitive, mostly continuous tenses) To be wanting; to lack something that should be present (see also adjectival missing).

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

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

22. (sports) To fail to score (a goal).
23. (intransitive, obsolete) To go wrong; to err.
24. (intransitive, obsolete) To be absent, deficient, or wanting.

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

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Kashubian: zmisowac (Canada, United States)

Translations

Noun

miss (plural misses)

1. A failure to physically hit.
2. A failure to obtain or accomplish something; a failure to succeed.

3. An act of avoidance (usually used with the verb give).

4. (informal) Someone or something whose loss or absence is felt.

5. (computing) The situation where an item is not found in a cache and therefore needs to be explicitly loaded.
6. (snooker) A foul shot that fails to hit the target ball, where the player has, in the referee's judgement, not made every effort to play a legal shot; in addition to conceding points for the foul, the player can be made to play the shot again.
7. (obsolete) Error, fault; misdeed, wrongdoing, sin.
8. (obsolete) Hurt or harm from a mistake or accident.
9. (obsolete) Loss, lack want; hence, the feeling of loss.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From mistress.

Alternative forms

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

Noun

miss (countable and uncountable, plural misses)

1. A title of respect for an unmarried woman with or without a name used.

2. A term of address by a student for a female teacher, especially one using their maiden name.

   Coordinate term: sir

3. An unmarried woman; a girl.
4. A kept woman; a mistress.
5. (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, isms, MSiS, SIMS, Sims, ISMS, MSIs, sims, SMIs

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈmis]

Noun

miss f (plural misses)

1. beauty queen

Dutch

Etymology 1

From English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪs/

Noun

miss f (plural missen, diminutive missje n)

1. a winner of a beauty contest

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

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/
• 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 *meyth₂- (“to change, replace”). Cognate with Old Norse missir, missa (“loss”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miss/, [mis]

Noun

miss n

1. loss

Declension

Strong a-stem:

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): /ˈmis/
• 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 (title)

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmis/ [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 [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

Anagrams

• sims

Swedish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

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

miss c

1. a miss (failure to hit)

   Synonym: bom

2. a mistake

   Synonym: misstag

Declension

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English miss.

Noun

miss c

1. Miss ((title for an) unmarried woman (in English-speaking countries))

   Synonym: (native) fröken

2. a Miss ((title for a) female participant in or winner of a beauty pageant or beauty contest)

   Synonyms: skönhetsmiss, (sometimes, for Swedish contests) fröken

Declension

See also

• skönhetsdrottning (“beauty queen”)
• skönhetstävling (“beauty pageant, beauty contest”)

Etymology 3

Onomatopoeic

Interjection

miss

1. (rare) Used to call a cat.

   Synonym: kiss

Derived terms

• misse

References

• miss in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• miss in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• miss in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)