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Misgive vs Missive - What's the difference?

misgive | missive |

As a verb misgive

is (archaic) to give fear or doubt to; to make irresolute.

As a noun missive is

(formal) a written message; a letter, note or memo.

As an adjective missive is

specially sent; intended or prepared to be sent.

misgive

English

Verb

  • (archaic) to give fear or doubt to; to make irresolute
  • * 1591 , , IV.vi
    • As Henry's late presaging prophecy
    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,
    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,
    What may befall him to his harm and ours.
  • * Milton
    • Such whose consciences misgave them, how ill they had deserved.
  • (archaic) To suspect; to dread.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • (archaic) To give wrongly; to give or grant amiss.
    • (Laud)

    Derived terms

    * misgivings English irregular verbs

    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.
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