mistrustful

comparative more mistrustful · superlative most mistrustful

1. Having mistrust, lacking trust (in someone or something).

   […] I hold it cowardice To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawn’d an open hand in sign of love;

   c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]

   1 more example

   In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.

   1910, Ian Hay, The Right Stuff, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book Two, Chapter Sixteen, p. 284

   Synonyms: distrustful, suspicious, untrusting, wary

2. Expressing or showing a lack of trust.

   He lookt askew with his mistrustfull eyes, And nycely trode, as thornes lay in his way

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 579

   2 more examples

   At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter; accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J. E.

   1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter X, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 160

   He led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a most mistrustful expression […]

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 2, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

3. Having a suspicion, imagining or supposing (that something undesirable is the case).

   The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no.

   1859, Charles Dickens, “Book 2, Chapter 15”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

4. obsoleteCausing mistrust, suspicions, or forebodings.

   Vp we gad, owt spredding oure sayls and make to the seaward: Al creeks mistrustful with Greekish countrye refusing.

   1582, Richard Stanihurst, transl., Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, Book 3, p. 60

   1 more example

   […] stonish’d as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood, Even so confounded in the dark she lay, Having lost the fair discovery of her way.

   1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC