missile

From Latin missile (“thrown weapon, projectile”), neuter of missilis (“throwable, capable of being thrown”), from mittere (“to send”). From 1611. Compare Middle French missile (“projectile”), from 1636.

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: mĭsʹīl, IPA^(key): /ˈmɪsaɪl/
• (General American, Canada) enPR: mĭsʹīl, mĭsʹəl, IPA^(key): /ˈmɪs(ə)l/, /-aɪl/

• Audio (General American):

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  Audio:

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• Homophone: missal (GA, Canada)
• Rhymes: -ɪsaɪl, -ɪsəl
• Hyphenation: mis‧sile

missile (plural missiles)

1. Any object used as a weapon by being thrown or fired through the air, such as stone, arrow or bullet. [from 17th c.]

   The Rhodians, who used leaden bullets, were able to project their missiles twice as far as the Persian slingers, who used large stones.

   • 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:

     And I saw askant the armies, / I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, / Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them, / And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, / And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) / And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.

   • 2012, Paragraph 24, R v Blackshaw (2012) WLR 1126:

     Riot officers and police on horseback were deployed to disperse the crowns^{[sic – meaning crowds]}, but they came under attack from bottles, fireworks and other missiles.

2. (military) A self-propelled projectile whose trajectory can be adjusted after it is launched. [from 20th c.]

   That missile is explosive enough to kill hundreds.

• mess
• message
• messenger
• mission
• missionary
• missive

• projectile
• rocket

• “missile”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “missile”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Missile”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes VI, Part 2 (M–N), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 540, column 3.

• mislies, similes, slimies, smilies

Inherited from Middle French, from Latin missilis (“that may be thrown”) (as in English).

• IPA^(key): /mi.sil/

• Audio:

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missile m (plural missiles)

1. missile

• missile à tête chercheuse

• “missile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmis.si.le/
• Rhymes: -issile
• Hyphenation: mìs‧si‧le

missile m (plural missili)

1. missile

missile (plural missili)

1. (relational) missile

From missilis.

missile n (genitive missilis); third declension

1. a thrown weapon, such as a javelin
2. (plural) presents from the Emperor thrown to the people
3. (New Latin) a missile (self-propelled projectile)
   • 2018, Tuomo Pekkanen, Foederatio occidentalis Syriam missilibus percussit [1], Nuntii Latini 20.4.2018:

     USA, Britannia, Francia mane Sabbati plus centum missilia in tres metas Syriacas miserunt, in quibus arma chemica conficiebantur et tractabantur.

     The US, UK, and France Saturday morning fired over a hundred missiles at three Syrian sites in which chemical weapons were being built and stored.

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem).

• (javelin): tēlum, iaculum

missile

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of missilis

• “missilis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “missilis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• missile in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.