misgive
misgive verb: of the mind, heart, etc.: to give fear or doubt to; to make irresolute.
Verb
misgive (third-person singular simple present misgives, present participle misgiving, simple past misgave, past participle misgiven)
- Of the mind, heart, etc.: to give fear or doubt to; to make irresolute.
- 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:c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- Surely those unarmed and Petitioning People needed not have bin so formidable to any, but to such whose consciences misgave them how ill they had deserv’d of the People;1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC, page 32
- To suspect; to dread.
- […] But for he had hir sought, / And coulde not finde hir any where, assuredly he thought / She did not liue aboue the molde, ne drewe the vitall breath: / Misgiuing worser in his minde, if ought be worse than death.1567, Ovid, “The First Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC
- […] my mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars / Shall bitterly begin his fearful date / With this night’s revels and expire the term / Of a despised life closed in my breast / By some vile forfeit of untimely death.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- To give wrongly; to give or grant amiss.
- […] I protest unto you, I knew nothing of any of their Liberty misgiven or misused, till about a Fortnight since […]1700, William Laud, An Historical Account of All Material Transactions Relating to the University of Oxford in The history of the troubles and tryal of the Most Reverend Father in God and blessed...
Forms of misgive
| third-person singular present | misgives |
|---|---|
| present participle | misgiving |
| past | misgave |
| past participle | misgiven |
Origin of misgive
from mis- + give, from Middle English give (“suggest, give”). Compare given and what gives.
Words formed from misgive
Questions about misgive
- What does misgive mean?
- Misgive means of the mind, heart, etc.: to give fear or doubt to; to make irresolute.
- What part of speech is misgive?
- Misgive is a verb.
- What is the past tense of misgive?
- The past tense of misgive is misgave.
Words near misgive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: misgive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “misgive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misgive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
