Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To rain in fine, mistlike droplets; drizzle.
- n. A mistlike rain; a drizzle.
- v. Chiefly British Slang To make a sudden departure.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To rain in very fine drops; drizzle.
- n. Fine rain.
- To succumb; yield; hence, sometimes, to become tipsy.
- To disappear suddenly; decamp; run off.
- To overcome; confuse; entangle mentally.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To rain in very fine drops; to drizzle.
- v. To take one's self off; to go.
- n. Mist; fine rain.
WordNet 3.0
- v. rain lightly
- n. very light rain; stronger than mist but less than a shower
Etymologies
- Middle English misellen; probably akin to Dutch dialectal mieselen; see meigh- in Indo-European roots.Origin unknown.
Examples
“I doubt the terms "woodshore" and "mizzle" pepper Young Adult fiction of the 21st century.”
“A mizzle, drizzle, haze, what's the difference between fog and mist, etc., etc. Simon Winchester: But the language and the dictionary therefore can almost inadvertently paint a portrait of the society that uses the language.”
A Back-Story to The Man Who Loved China A Coincidence Most Curious and Telling
“The Liffey flowed adjacently, by the steeples of Christchurch and Adam-and-Eve's, a dirty, eddying watercourse serenaded by the seagulls and the calls of the barge-men through its mizzle and stench.”
The Guardian: Joseph O'Connor: 'It was a voice that opened worlds'
“The weather on the day we had set aside to do the count, Saturday was misty, moisty and drizzling, sort of a mizzle.”
“I want to be in Fantasyland when the shizzle hits the mizzle.”
Gordon Brown will not have his "standing podium-to-podium with the Messiah image."
“Over on the East Coast we have had rain, rain, a little more rain and that was followed up by some mizzle.”
Friday Night Photos: 2009 Garden Update #4 - Little Tomatoes, Veggies, and Herbs
“Sigh... and here I've been lying on a sofa in London all day with an intermittent fever watching the mizzle come down in the back garden.”
“Like, I took the car for the morning newspaper run, due to mizzle.”
“Not raining, just cloud and fog and mizzle, although the weather radar shows Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and western Maine getting drenched.”
“Various sections were actually less-than-dry, but worst I actually encountered would be rated a lightish mizzle.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mizzle’.
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Sima Yi's list
A list of words I find unusual and interesting.
dysphemism, hapax legomenon, rill, repristinate, exuviate, phillipic, fillip, cyanobacteria, prokaryotic, onomasticon, bibliotics, diplomatics and 45 more...
bilby Mist morphing into drizzle. Jun 13, 2009
mollusque She met me in front of the house, strutting in triumph, brandishing a little key that caught a glint of sun in the hothouse mizzle.
--Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins! p. 143 Jun 13, 2009