Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To arouse suspicion or apprehension in (one's mind or heart, for example).
- v. To be suspicious, apprehensive, or doubtful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To give or grant amiss.
- To give doubt or apprehension to; make apprehensive; cause to hesitate: used of the mind, heart, conscience, etc., with a pronoun for object, or with the object unexpressed.
- To give way to doubt; be apprehensive; hesitate.
- To give way; break down.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To give or grant amiss.
- v. Specifically: To give doubt and apprehension to, instead of confidence and courage; to impart fear to; to make irresolute; -- usually said of the mind or heart, and followed by the objective personal pronoun.
- v. obsolete To suspect; to dread.
- v. To give out doubt and apprehension; to be fearful or irresolute.
WordNet 3.0
- v. suggest fear or doubt
Etymologies
- mis-1 + give, to suggest (obsolete). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Dreadfully did my heart then misgive me: I was ready to faint.”
“My heart began then to misgive me a little, and I was very much fatigued; for I had no sleep for several nights before, to signify; and at last I said, Pray Mr. Robert, there is a town before us, what do you call it? —”
“So that when I heard his heavy footstep advancing along the passage my heart did misgive me, and I felt that I was trembling.”
“As my time drew nearer, and there got to be talk of my having a new coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive me.”
“My mind doth misgive me that you are right," said Philip.”
“I was not prepared for quite so much dispatch, and felt my heart misgive me, as if it were hovering between heaven and earth; but”
“He used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin 'nothin' in pertickler an 'I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin' off in spots.”
“That it was of such importance he should go and return ere the rainy season commenced, he could not even afford a day, and that he knew, however cheerful I might talk about the matter, my heart would misgive me, when the time came for him to leave, I might not probably grant him permission to go, when it was of the most vital importance he should.”
“Lady Maude advised me in it, and I cannot say I repent it now, though my heart does misgive ever and again," he replied.”
“The meaning of your argument I take to be this: that by the unaccountable success of the enterprize and the tame submission of the people in general, if the scheme misgive all Scotland becomes involved in the guilt, and may expect the outmost severitys this”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘misgive’.
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Quenelles of Random Palavery
More randomly-garnered terms from the world of words that don't quite yet fit into my other lists.
Goddidit, barcelona, filigrain, good-natured, ill-natured, half-bit, endosome, underplaying, parotid, denormalization, sleightgeist, wheezing and 2334 more...
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