miss.
To fail to hit, catch, grasp, etc.
Meaning & usage
To fail to hit, catch, grasp, etc.
I fired the gun, but the bullet missed the target.
I tried to kick the ball, but missed.
To avoid hitting.
The driver swerved and just managed to miss the chicken crossing the road.
To fail to achieve or attain.
The company missed all its sales targets.
To fail to experience, attend, partake, take advantage of, etc.
Joe missed the meeting this morning.
I usually watch the Oscars Ceremonies, but I missed it this year.
To avoid or escape.
The car just missed hitting a passer-by.
We missed disaster by the skin of our teeth.
To become aware of the loss or absence of; to feel the want or need of, sometimes with regret; to feel sadness at the absence of somebody or something.
I miss you! Come home soon!
I miss going for walks along the beach.
To fail to understand.
to miss the joke
To fail to notice; to have a shortcoming of perception; overlook.
So I'm just going over my early notes, see if I missed anything.
To be too late to connect with or meet something or someone (a means of transportation, a deadline, etc.).
I missed the plane!
"Is Polly still here?" — "No, sorry, you've just missed her. She left a couple of minutes ago."
To be wanting; to lack something that should be present (see also adjectival missing).
The car is missing essential features.
This jigsaw is missing several pieces.
To spare someone of something unwanted or undesirable.
Miss me with that nonsense!
To fail to help the hand of a player.
Player A: J7. Player B: Q6. Table: 283. The flop missed both players!
To fail to score (a goal).
To go wrong; to err.
To be absent, deficient, or wanting.
Where this word comes from
Verb from Middle English missen, from Old English missan (“to miss, escape the notice of a person”), from Proto-West Germanic *missijan, from Proto-Germanic *missijaną (“to miss, go wrong, fail”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to change, exchange, trade”). Cognate with West Frisian misse (“to miss”), Dutch missen (“to miss”), German missen (“to miss”), Norwegian Bokmål and Danish miste (“to lose”), Swedish missa (“to miss”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Icelandic missa (“to lose”) and Latin mittere (“to send, let go”). Noun from Middle English misse, mis, from Old English miss (“loss, absence”), from Proto-West Germanic *miss, from Proto-Germanic *miss- (“loss”). Cognate with Scots miss (“a loss, want, cause of grief or mourning”), Middle High German misse, mis (“lack, missing, absence”), Icelandic missir (“loss”). Related also to Scots mis (“wrongdoing, sin, guilt”), Dutch mis (“misdeed, wrongdoing, mistake”), Middle Low German misse (“sin, wrong”).
A failure to physically hit.
In eight shots at the target he had six misses.
A failure to obtain or accomplish something; a failure to succeed.
After four top-ten singles, the band's next release was a miss.
Your answer isn't exactly right, but it's a very close miss.
An act of avoidance (usually used with the verb give).
I think I’ll give the meeting a miss.
Someone or something whose loss or absence is felt.
Top striker Smith is out injured and will be a big miss for United.
The situation where an item is not found in a cache and therefore needs to be explicitly loaded.
A foul shot that fails to hit the target ball, where the player has, in the referee's judgement, not made every effort to play a legal shot; in addition to conceding points for the foul, the player can be made to play the shot again.
Error, fault; misdeed, wrongdoing, sin.
Hurt or harm from a mistake or accident.
Loss, lack want; hence, the feeling of loss.
Where this word comes from
Verb from Middle English missen, from Old English missan (“to miss, escape the notice of a person”), from Proto-West Germanic *missijan, from Proto-Germanic *missijaną (“to miss, go wrong, fail”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to change, exchange, trade”). Cognate with West Frisian misse (“to miss”), Dutch missen (“to miss”), German missen (“to miss”), Norwegian Bokmål and Danish miste (“to lose”), Swedish missa (“to miss”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Icelandic missa (“to lose”) and Latin mittere (“to send, let go”). Noun from Middle English misse, mis, from Old English miss (“loss, absence”), from Proto-West Germanic *miss, from Proto-Germanic *miss- (“loss”). Cognate with Scots miss (“a loss, want, cause of grief or mourning”), Middle High German misse, mis (“lack, missing, absence”), Icelandic missir (“loss”). Related also to Scots mis (“wrongdoing, sin, guilt”), Dutch mis (“misdeed, wrongdoing, mistake”), Middle Low German misse (“sin, wrong”).
Alternative spelling of Miss when used as a term of address or title of respect.
You may sit here, miss.
The dog ate my homework, miss.
An unmarried woman; a girl.
A kept woman; a mistress.
In the game of three-card loo, an extra hand, dealt on the table, which may be substituted for the hand dealt to a player.
Where this word comes from
From mistress.
Try it on your idea.
miss has 4 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.