Amiss vs Mistake - What's the difference?
amiss | mistake |
Wrong; faulty; out of order; improper; as, it may not be amiss to ask advice.
* Wollaston
(obsolete) Fault; wrong; an evil act, a bad deed.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.i:
* 1635 , John Donne, "His parting from her":
An error; a blunder.
* 1877 , Henry Heth, quoting , in "Causes of the Defeat of Gen. Lee's Army at the Battle of GettysburgOpinions of Leading Confederate Soldiers.", Southern Historical Society Papers (1877), editor Rev. J. WM. Jones [http://books.google.com/books?id=iDIFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=lee+%22mistakes+were+made%22&hl=en&ei=fchaTbu4L8L98AaVs4n-DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=lee%20%22mistakes%20were%20made%22&f=false]
(baseball) A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard to hit location, but instead ends up in an easy to hit place
To understand wrongly, taking one thing for another, or someone for someone else.
* Shakespeare
* Johnson
To commit an unintentional error; to do or think something wrong.
* Jonathan Swift
(obsolete, rare) To take or choose wrongly.
As nouns the difference between amiss and mistake
is that amiss is (obsolete) fault; wrong; an evil act, a bad deed while mistake is an error; a blunder.As an adjective amiss
is wrong; faulty; out of order; improper; as, it may not be amiss to ask advice.As an adverb amiss
is (archaic) mistakenly.As a verb mistake is
to understand wrongly, taking one thing for another, or someone for someone else.amiss
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- He suspected something was amiss .
- Something amiss in the arrangements had distracted the staff.
- His wisdom and virtue cannot always rectify that which is amiss in himself or his circumstances.
Noun
(amisses)- Now by my head (said Guyon) much I muse, / How that same knight should do so foule amis [...].
- Yet Love, thou'rt blinder then thy self in this, / To vex my Dove-like friend for my amiss [...].
External links
* *Anagrams
* * *mistake
English
Noun
(en noun)- After it is all over, as stupid a fellow as I am can see that mistakes' were made. I notice, however, that my ' mistakes are never told me until it is too late.
Synonyms
* See alsoUsage notes
* Usually make a mistake. SeeVerb
- Sorry, I mistook you for my brother. You look very similar.
- My father's purposes have been mistook .
- A man may mistake the love of virtue for the practice of it.
- Servants mistake , and sometimes occasion misunderstanding among friends.
- (Shakespeare)