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
- v. chiefly UK To abscond, scram, flee.
- v. intransitive, UK, North America To rain in very fine drops.
- n. misty rain or drizzle
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To rain in very fine drops; to drizzle.
- v. Slang 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
- From Middle English misellen ("to drizzle"). Cognate with Low German musseln ("to mizzle"), Dutch miezelen ("to drizzle, rain gently"). Of obscure origin, but apparently related to Middle Low German mes ("urine"), Middle Dutch mes, mis ("urine"), both from Old Saxon mehs ("urine"), from Proto-Germanic *mihstuz, *mihstaz, *mihsk- (“urine”), from Proto-Germanic *mīganan (“to urinate”), from Proto-Indo-European *meiǵʰ-, *omeiǵʰ- (“to urinate”). Compare also English micturate ("to urinate"), Old Frisian mese ("urine"), Low German miegen ("to urinate"), Dutch mijgen ("to urinate"), Danish mige ("to urinate"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English misellen; probably akin to Dutch dialectal mieselen; see meigh- in Indo-European roots.Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
mabble, mabsoot, macadamize, macarism, macarize, macaronic, macerate, macerator, machair, machairodont, machicolation, machinule and 898 more...
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Rainy weather report.
Today's weather.
is it rain, sprinkles, showers, sleet, or drizzle?
Are those drops, droplets?
Is the weatherman just using the word precipitation?
Is the scientist causing ...rain, shower, sprinkle, sleet, drizzle, drops, droplets, precipitation, freezing rain, thundershower, mist, pour and 126 more...
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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...
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SoSheShall's list
slurp, coeur, slurple, glop, perp, fluarxx, ropechno, herrherr, burrduhherrherr, sloppy, cheezie balls, eccentric and 634 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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lotic words of flow
fast flowing, rapid, confluent words
boustrophedon, boustrophedric, thixotrophic, ludic, hesychastic, blend, quaquaversal, phacoemulsification, mordant, glissando, vatic, tournure and 233 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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april showers
it never rains but it:
rain, shower, drizzle, drip, pour, sprinkle, trickle, sleet, hail, snow, blizzard, precipitate and 33 more...
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Kerian's Words
mizzle, spat, yowl, murmur, dubious, aloof, aloft, well-read, carrion, vinegary, polar, utterance and 10 more...
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If Snoop Dogg made a list
Fo' shizzle my chizzle, here's a lizzle!
sizzle, swizz, swizzle, twizzle, whizz, wrizzle, bedrizzle, bizz, crizzle, dizz, drizzle, hizz and 14 more...
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Wild Weather
anabatic wind, stratiform, fractostratus, frazil slush, isodrosotherm, mammatus clouds, macroburst, nimbostratus, ribbon lightning, staccato lightning, subtropical jet, suction vortex and 76 more...
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M or N?
nurk, nyaffle, nosism, nexum, nazar, noyade, nooningscaup, mimp, mida, mollynogging, mulciberian, marzavec and 68 more...
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words stolen from books
Right now, these are courtesy of Captain Blood Returns, Emma, Heidi, Perilous Gard, and something(s) that I'm forgetting. More books will come into play later, most likely.
saker, machicolate, langrel, arrogate, pellucid, mizzle, embrocation, phillipic, asseverate, morganatic, teind, dight
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Found reading
telga, tarantass, jalousie, argillaceous, sardanapalus, losel, circumambient, orbicular, mufti, statim, spizzerinctum, soupçon and 46 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mizzle.
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