misgiving means doubt, apprehension, a feeling of dread. It carries an Arena rating of 1694, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, misgiving ranks #1,085 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,400 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,431 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #3,641 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
misgiving is pronounced /mɪsˈɡɪvɪŋ/.
Why “misgiving” is a great word
A sudden, specific feeling of doubt, distrust, or apprehension about the wisdom of an action or a forthcoming outcome. From the verb misgive (to cause to feel doubt or apprehension), from mis- (badly, wrongly) + give (in the sense of 'to suggest or impart a feeling'), with first attestation as a noun around 1600. Unlike "worry," which gnaws with anxious persistence, or "intuition," which can be a neutral or even benevolent guide, a misgiving is a singular, cold note of dissent from within. It is the faint metallic taste that floods the mouth before signing the contract, the subtle shift in a trusted friend's tone that freezes a laugh in your throat, the shadow that falls across a sunlit path just as you are about to take the first step—each a quiet but insistent voice from the body's deeper knowing, whispering not of what is, but of what might go wrong.
Etymology
From misgive, from mis- + give, from Middle English give (“suggest, given”). Compare given and what gives.
noun
- Doubt, apprehension, a feeling of dreade.g.“He could think of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would have been better if she had not come.” — 1846-1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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