missay

M3I1S1S1A1Y4

verb

To speak ill of (someone).

OriginMiddle English misseien →
Scrabble 11
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Meanings

verbmissay (third-person singular simple present missays, present participle missaying, simple past and past participle missaid)

present singular third person missays · participle present missaying · participle past missaid · past missaid

  1. archaictransitiveTo speak ill of (someone).
  2. intransitiveobsoleteTo say something erroneous; to speak wrongly.

    The worde gone out she backe againe would call, / As her repenting so to have missayd [...].

    1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Origin

  1. Middle Englishmisseien
  2. Englishmissay

From Middle English misseien, misseyen, misseggen, equivalent to mis- + say. Cognate with Middle Dutch misseggen (“to missay”).

More words from Middle English

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Māori nape
  • napeto say something wrongly
Cite this entry
APA

missay. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/missay

MLA

“missay.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/missay. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “missay,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/missay.

Source: missay on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.