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Dispatch vs Missive - What's the difference?

dispatch | missive | Related terms |

In obsolete terms the difference between dispatch and missive

is that dispatch is a dismissal while missive is one who is sent; a messenger.

As nouns the difference between dispatch and missive

is that dispatch is a message sent quickly, as a shipment, a prompt settlement of a business, or an important official message sent by a diplomat, or military officer while missive is a written message; a letter, note or memo.

As a verb dispatch

is to send a shipment with promptness.

As an adjective missive is

specially sent; intended or prepared to be sent.

dispatch

English

(wikipedia dispatch)

Alternative forms

* despatch (UK, Australia)

Verb

  • To send a shipment with promptness.
  • To send an important official message sent by a diplomat or military officer with promptness.
  • To send a journalist to a place in order to report
  • *{{quote-news, year=2013, date=April 9, author=Andrei Lankov, title=Stay Cool. Call North Korea’s Bluff., work=New York Times citation
    • , passage=Scores of foreign journalists have been dispatched to Seoul to report on the growing tensions between the two Koreas and the possibility of war.}}
  • To hurry.
  • To dispose of speedily, as business; to execute quickly; to make a speedy end of; to finish; to perform.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we / The business we have talked of.
  • * Robynson (More's Utopia)
    • [The] harvest men almost in one fair day dispatcheth all the harvest work.
  • To rid; to free.
  • * Udall
    • I had clean dispatched myself of this great charge.
  • (obsolete) To deprive.
  • To destroy quickly and efficiently.
  • (computing) To pass on for further processing, especially via a dispatch table (often with to ).
  • * 2004 , Peter Gutmann, Cryptographic Security Architecture: Design and Verification (page 102)
    • These handlers perform any additional checking and processing that may be necessary before and after a message is dispatched to an object. In addition, some message types are handled internally by the kernel

    Synonyms

    * destroy * kill * make haste * send

    Derived terms

    * dispatch table

    Hyponyms

    * double dispatch * multiple dispatch * single dispatch

    Noun

    (es)
  • A message sent quickly, as a shipment, a prompt settlement of a business, or an important official message sent by a diplomat, or military officer.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove, and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}
  • The act of doing something quickly.
  • * 1661 , , The Life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond
    • During the whole time of his abode in the university he generally spent thirteen hours of the day in study; by which assiduity besides an exact dispatch of the whole course of philosophy, he read over in a manner all classic authors that are extant
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-01, volume=405, issue=8813, page=3 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist), title= An internet of airborne things
    • , passage=A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone.}}
  • A mission by an emergency response service, typically attend to an emergency in the field.
  • (obsolete) A dismissal.

    • Derived terms

    * dispatcher * dispatch case * dispatch table

    missive

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (formal) A written message; a letter, note or memo.
  • * 2008 , Claire Armistead, The Guardian , 25 Oct 2008:
    • The Madonna letters, which are interspersed with more personal missives in this curious epistolary memoir, accumulate into a rap about the downsides of celebrity - the problems of ageing, of invaded privacy, of becoming vain and impetuously adopting children from other continents.
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick , Chapter 71:
    • "Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat.
  • (obsolete) One who is sent; a messenger.
    • Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it came missives from the King, who all hailed me ‘Thane of Cawdor,’ by which title these Weird Sisters saluted me and referred me to the coming on of time with ‘Hail king that shalt be.’

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Specially sent; intended or prepared to be sent.
    • a letter missive
    (Ayliffe)
  • missile
  • * Dryden
    • The missive weapons fly.
    ----