misdoubt

present singular third person misdoubts · participle present misdoubting · participle past misdoubted · past misdoubted

1. archaicregionalTo doubt the existence or reality of.

   ‘Ay!’ he said. ‘I don't misdoubt it. —But twenty guineas for a bit of a paintin' as he knocked off in an hour or two—!’

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   And though all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength.

   1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC

2. archaicregionalTo have suspicions about.

   I do not misdoubt my wife, but I would be loath to turn them together

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

   1 more example

   "I misdoubt me much that he is a spy!" whispered one of the elder cavaliers.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 28

1. suspicion; hesitation