mist · noun — water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.). It carries an Arena rating of 1530, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, mist ranks #4 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,670 of 17,136 for Most Malleable Words, #2,008 of 17,128 for Most Vivid Words, #2,754 of 17,132 for Most Beautiful Words.
mist is pronounced /mɪst/.
Why “mist” is a great word
Water or other liquid suspended in the atmosphere as fine, light-catching droplets, or to become covered with or produce such droplets. It comes down the ages from the Old English *mist*, meaning both "mist" and "darkness," a Germanic word for clouded air and obscured sight. Unlike "fog," which is a dense, obliterating wall, or "haze," a dry, particulate obscurity, mist is a soft, liquid translucence, a veil rather than a blanket. It is the breath on a cold window that blurs the world without erasing it, the spectral rain that hangs in the air of a damp forest, the gentle exhalation of an evening meadow cooling—the world rendered not as absence, but as suggestion.
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Etymology
The noun is from Middle English mist, from Old English mist (“mist; darkness; dimness (of eyesight)”), from Proto-Germanic *mihstaz (“mist, fog”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃migʰstos, from the root *h₃meygʰ- (“cloud, fog, drizzle”). Cognate with Scots mist (“mist, fog”), West Frisian mist (“mist”), Dutch mist (“mist”), Swedish mist (“mist, fog”), Icelandic mistur (“mist”), West Frisian miegelje (“to drizzle”), Dutch dialectal miggelen, miegelen (“to drizzle”), Lithuanian miglà (“fog”), Sanskrit मेघ (megha, “cloud”), Russian мгла (mgla, “fog, haze”). The verb is from Middle English misten, from Old English mistian.
noun
- Water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.)e.g.“It was difficult to see through the morning mist.”
- A layer of fine droplets or particles.e.g.“There was an oily mist on the lens.”
- Anything that dims, darkens, or hinders vision.e.g.“His passion cast a mist before his sense.” — 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
verb
- To form mist.e.g.“It's misting this morning.”
- To spray fine droplets on, particularly of water.e.g.“I mist my tropical plants every morning.”
- To rain in very fine droplets.e.g.“... it's misting outside. When it mists outside it's half fog and half rain.” — 1996, Don McCabe, Word Families in Sentence Context, AVKO Foundation, →ISBN, page 235:
- To cover with a mist.e.g.“The lens was misted.”
- To be covered by tears.e.g.“My eyes misted when I remembered what had happened.”
- To disperse into a mist, accompanying operation of equipment at high speeds.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).