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PlainSpell

miss

/mɪs/verb, noun

miss is spelled M-I-S-S: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 166 times per million words in written English, the 611th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, miss means “To fail to hit, catch, grasp, etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in miss?

Letters4: M-I-S-S
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing166 times per million words; the 611th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is miss?

Miss appears 166 times per million words in written English, the 611th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce miss?

  • US /mɪs/

Miss has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-miss.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-miss.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Miss.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with miss?

4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as miss from its last stressed vowel (/ɪs/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: sims.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of miss

  • misses present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • missing participle, present
  • missed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does miss mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To fail to hit, catch, grasp, etc.

    I fired the gun, but the bullet missed the target.

  2. 2

    To avoid hitting.

    The driver swerved and just managed to miss the chicken crossing the road.

  3. 3

    To fail to achieve or attain.

    The company missed all its sales targets.

  4. 4

    To fail to experience, attend, partake, take advantage of, etc.

    Joe missed the meeting this morning.

  5. 5

    To avoid or escape.

    The car just missed hitting a passer-by.

  6. 6

    To become aware of the loss or absence of; to feel the want or need of, sometimes with regret; to feel sadness at the absence of somebody or something.

    I miss you! Come home soon!

  7. 7

    To fail to understand.

    to miss the joke

  8. 8

    To fail to notice; to have a shortcoming of perception; overlook.

    So I'm just going over my early notes, see if I missed anything.

noun

  1. 1

    A failure to physically hit.

    In eight shots at the target he had six misses.

  2. 2

    A failure to obtain or accomplish something; a failure to succeed.

    After four top-ten singles, the band's next release was a miss.

  3. 3

    An act of avoidance (usually used with the verb give).

    I think I’ll give the meeting a miss.

  4. 4

    informalSomeone or something whose loss or absence is felt.

    Top striker Smith is out injured and will be a big miss for United.

  5. 5

    The situation where an item is not found in a cache and therefore needs to be explicitly loaded.

  6. 6

    A foul shot that fails to hit the target ball, where the player has, in the referee's judgement, not made every effort to play a legal shot; in addition to conceding points for the foul, the player can be made to play the shot again.

  7. 7

    obsoleteError, fault; misdeed, wrongdoing, sin.

  8. 8

    obsoleteHurt or harm from a mistake or accident.

  9. 9

    Alternative spelling of Miss when used as a term of address or title of respect.

    You may sit here, miss.

  10. 10

    An unmarried woman; a girl.

  11. 11

    A kept woman; a mistress.

  12. 12

    In the game of three-card loo, an extra hand, dealt on the table, which may be substituted for the hand dealt to a player.

noun

as Miss
  1. 1

    A form of address, now used chiefly for an unmarried woman; used chiefly of girls before the mid-1700s, and thereafter used also of adult women without regard to marital status.

  2. 2

    With a surname.

    These are the two young ladies that I wanted you to meet, Miss Jones and Miss Robinson.

  3. 3

    With a full name.

    The victim was named as Miss Jane Doe.

  4. 4

    datedWith a first name only.

    Excuse me Ma'am, will Miss Julia and Miss Emily be staying for tea?

  5. 5

    datedUsed alone.

    Good morning, Miss. May I help you?

  6. 6

    A form of address for a female teacher or a waitress.

    Excuse me, Miss, Donny's been pinching my pencils again.

  7. 7

    Used in title of the (female) winner of a beauty contest, or certain other types of contest, prefixing the country or other region that she represents, or the category of contest.

    Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause to our lovely new Miss Yorkshire!

  8. 8

    derogatoryUsed in a mock title to point out some quality, or alleged quality, of a girl or woman.

    Don't ask me, ask Miss know-it-all over there.

noun

as MISS
  1. 1

    Initialism of medium intensity steady state.

  2. 2

    Initialism of microbially induced sedimentary structure.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Miss in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmanquer, rater (to fail to hit), languir, regretter (to feel the absence of someone or something; to…), ne comprendre pas (to fail to understand), raté (a failure to hit)
Germanverfehlen (to fail to hit), vermissen, sich sehnen (to feel the absence of someone or something; to…), nicht bemerken, übersehen (to fail to notice, to overlook), verpassen (to fail to attend)
Portuguesefalhar, errar (to fail to hit), sentir falta de, sentir saudade(s) de (to feel the absence of someone or something; to…), não perceber (to fail to understand), evitar (to avoid; to escape)
Spanishfallar, errar, marrar (to fail to hit), echar de menos, extrañar, añorar (to feel the absence of someone or something; to…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does miss come from?

Verb from Middle English missen, from Old English missan (“to miss, escape the notice of a person”), from Proto-West Germanic *missijan, from Proto-Germanic *missijaną (“to miss, go wrong, fail”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to change, exchange, trade”). Cognate with West Frisian misse (“to miss”), Dutch missen (“to miss”), German missen (“to miss”), Norwegian Bokmål and Danish miste (“to lose”), Swedish missa (“to miss”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Icelandic missa (“to lose”) and Latin mittere (“to send, let go”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after miss