mission

Learned borrowing from Latin missiō, missiōnem (“a sending, sending away, dispatching, discharging, release, remission, cessation”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪʃn̩/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪʃən/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (Indic) IPA^(key): /miʃin/
• Rhymes: -ɪʃən
• Hyphenation: mis‧sion

mission (countable and uncountable, plural missions)

1. (countable) A set of tasks that fulfills a purpose or duty; an assignment set by an employer, or by oneself.
2. (countable) A missionary expedition.
3. (in the plural, "the missions") Third World charities, particularly those which preach as well as provide aid.
4. (countable, Catholicism) An infrequent gathering of religious believers in a parish, usually part of a larger regional event with a central theme.
5. A number of people appointed to perform any service; a delegation; an embassy.
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “New Atlantis. A Worke Vnfinished.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC, pages 18–19:

     [I]n either of theſe Ships, there ſhould be a Miſsion of three of the Fellowes, or Brethren of Salomons Houſe; [...]

6. (obsolete) Dismissal; discharge from service
7. A settlement or building serving as a base for missionary work.

   Many cities across the Americas grew from Spanish missions.

8. (Australia, becoming obsolete) An settlement predominantly inhabited by Indigenous Australians living in housing commission.
9. (slang, drugs) A drug run.

mission (third-person singular simple present missions, present participle missioning, simple past and past participle missioned)

1. (transitive) To send on a mission.
2. (intransitive) To do missionary work, proselytize.

• “mission”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “mission”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “mission”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• Ionisms

mission

1. genitive singular of missio

Inherited from Old French mission, borrowed from Latin missiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /mi.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

mission f (plural missions)

1. mission (duty that involves fulfilling a request)
2. mission (religious evangelism)

• mission spatiale
• missionnaire
• missionner

• admission
• démission
• permission
• rémission
• mettre

• → Romanian: misiune
• → Turkish: misyon

• “mission”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• misions

From Old French mission, borrowed from Latin missiō, missiōnem.

mission f (plural missions)

1. (Jersey) mission

• mession
• micion
• mision

Borrowed from Latin missiō, missiōnem.

mission oblique singular, f (oblique plural missions, nominative singular mission, nominative plural missions)

1. expense; cost; outlay

• French: mission
• Norman: mission

• IPA^(key): /mɪˈɧuːn/

• Audio:

  (file)

mission c

1. (countable) a mission; a purpose or duty, a task set by an employer
2. (uncountable) mission; religious evangelism

   inre mission ― domestic mission (evangelizing within the home country)

• missionär
• missionsfält
• missionsförbund