miss

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

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪs

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”).

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.

   I fired the gun, but the bullet missed the target.

   I tried to kick the ball, but missed.

   She tried to grab hold of the end of the rope, but she missed.

   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 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.

3. (ambitransitive, physical) To avoid hitting.

   The driver swerved and just managed to miss the chicken crossing the road.

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

   The company missed all its sales targets.

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

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

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

   Joe missed the meeting this morning.

   I usually watch the Oscars Ceremonies, but I missed it this year.

   I'm starving! I missed breakfast this morning.

   I only left the queue for a moment and now I've missed my turn.

   This offer is too good to miss.

   to miss an opportunity, to miss a chance

9. (transitive) To avoid or escape.

   The car just missed hitting a passer-by.

   We missed disaster by the skin of our teeth.

11. (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!

    I miss going for walks along the beach.

    I'm not going to the party, but I don't think I'll be missed.

    • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] 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.

13. (transitive) To fail to understand.

    Antonym: catch

    to miss the joke

15. (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.

17. (transitive) To be too late to connect with or meet something or someone (a means of transportation, a deadline, etc.).

    I missed the plane!

    "Is Polly still here?" — "No, sorry, you've just missed her. She left a couple of minutes ago."

    • 2025 March 5, “Ayr miles with a 'Spirit of Scotland'”, in RAIL, number 1030, page 45:

      And we can't afford to miss the train back, as the next one is at 0704 tomorrow...

19. (transitive, mostly continuous tenses) To be wanting; to lack something that should be present (see also adjectival missing).

    The car is missing essential features.

    This jigsaw is missing several pieces.

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

    Miss me with that nonsense!

21. (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!

22. (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.

23. (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?

24. (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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act PROLOGUE, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:

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

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

• (antonym(s) of “to fail to hit”): hit, strike, impinge on, run into, collide with

• → Kashubian: zmisowac (Canada, United States)

miss (plural misses)

1. A failure to physically hit.

   In eight shots at the target he had six misses.

   • 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 something; a failure to succeed.

   After four top-ten singles, the band's next release was a miss.

   Your answer isn't exactly right, but it's a very close miss.

   Jones put the penalty shot over the bar — what a terrible miss.

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

   I think I’ll give the meeting a miss.

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

   Top striker Smith is out injured and will be a big miss for United.

5. (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.

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.

From mistress.

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

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. A term of address by a student for a female teacher.

   Coordinate term: sir

   Here's my report, miss.

3. 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.

4. 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[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:

     courting a Miss

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.

• (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)}

• missis, missus
• missy

• ISMs, isms, MSiS, SIMS, Sims, ISMS, MSIs, sims, SMIs

Borrowed from English miss.

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

miss f (plural misses)

1. beauty queen

From English miss.

• IPA^(key): /mɪs/

• Audio:

  (file)

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.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• mss

miss

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

• miß (superseded)

• IPA^(key): /mɪs/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪs

miss

1. singular imperative of messen

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪs/

miss

1. second-person singular imperative of mess

miss

1. imperative of missa

• mis — late Old English

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”).

• IPA^(key): /miss/, [mis]

miss n

1. loss

Strong a-stem:

• mis-
• misċan
• missan

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

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmis/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -is
• Syllabification: miss

miss f (indeclinable)

1. beauty queen

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

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

miss f (plural miss)

1. miss (title)

Unadapted borrowing from English miss.

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

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

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

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.

• “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

• sims

• Audio:

  (file)

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?.

miss c

1. a miss (failure to hit)

   Synonym: bom

   Var det en träff eller en miss?

   Was it a hit or a miss?

2. a mistake

   Synonym: misstag

   Jag gjorde en miss

   I made a mistake

   en rejäl miss

   a big mistake / a huge blunder

Borrowed from English miss.

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

   Miss Hawaii gick vidare till att vinna Miss America-tävlingen

   Miss Hawaii went on to win the Miss America contest

   • 1964, Thore Skogman, “Fröken Fräken [Miss Freckle]”‎^[2]performed by Sven-Ingvars:

     Jag har sett miss Grekland. Jag har sett miss Kina. Nästan alla världens vackra misser har jag mött. Och jag tyckte alla, sköna var och fina. Men när jag kom hem till Värmland mötte jag en Värmlandsjänta, och hon är för mig det allra sötaste bland sött. Lilla söta fröken Fräken ifrån Fryken blev miss Värmland nu i år. Alla Värmlandspulsar slår när hon genom staden går. Lilla söta fröken Fräken ifrån Fryken, hon är blond som ängens råg. Vackrast utav alla flickorna jag såg.

     I have seen Miss Greece. I have seen Miss China. I have met almost every beautiful Miss in the world [almost all the world's beautiful Misses have I met]. And I thought all of them were beautiful and pretty. But when I came home to Värmland, I met a Värmland gal, and she is to me the very cutest among cute. Cute little Miss Freckle from Fryken became Miss Värmland [now] this year. All the Värmland pulses beat when she walks through the city. Cute little Miss Freckle from Fryken, she is blonde like the rye of the meadow. The most beautiful of all the girls I saw.

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

Onomatopoeic

miss

1. (rare) Used to call a cat.

   Synonym: kiss

• misse

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