mist
/mɪst/noun, verb
mist is spelled M-I-S-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, mist means “Water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of mist is mists.
How many letters and syllables are in mist?
| Letters | 4: M-I-S-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.7 times per million words; the 11,685th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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 mist?
Mist appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th 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 mist?
- /mɪst/
Mist 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-mist.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with mist?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as mist.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: smit, stim, tism.
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 mist
- mists plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- misting participle, present
- misted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mist mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Water or other liquid finely suspended in air. (Compare fog, haze.)
It was difficult to see through the morning mist.
- 2
A layer of fine droplets or particles.
There was an oily mist on the lens.
- 3
Anything that dims, darkens, or hinders vision.
verb
- 1
To form mist.
It's misting this morning.
- 2
To spray fine droplets on, particularly of water.
I mist my tropical plants every morning.
- 3
To rain in very fine droplets.
- 4
To cover with a mist.
The lens was misted.
- 5
To be covered by tears.
My eyes misted when I remembered what had happened.
- 6
To disperse into a mist, accompanying operation of equipment at high speeds.
verb
- 1
Alternative form of MST (to mock a work by inserting annotations)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Mist in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | brouillard, brume , buée , faire de la brume, brumer |
| German | Dunst |
| Portuguese | névoa, neblina, bruma, brêtema , enevoar |
| Spanish | neblina, bruma |
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 mist come from?
The noun is from Middle English mist, from Old English mist (“mist; darkness; dimness (of eyesight)”), from Proto-Germanic *mihstaz (“mist, fog”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃migʰstos, from the root *h₃meygʰ- (“cloud, fog, drizzle”). Cognate with Scots mist (“mist, fog”), West Frisian mist (“mist”), Dutch mist (“mist”), Swedish mist (“mist, fog”), Icelandic mistur (“mist”), West Frisian miegelje (“to drizzle”), Dutch dialectal miggelen, miegelen (“to drizzle”), Lithuanian miglà (“fog”), Sanskrit मेघ (megha, “cloud”), Russian мгла (mgla, “fog, haze”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).