missus

Representing a typical pronunciation of Mrs, a corrupted form of Mistress.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪs.əz/, /ˈmɪs.ɪz/, /ˈmɪs.əs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Homophones: misses, Misses
• Rhymes: -ɪsəz, -ɪsəs

missus (plural missuses)

1. (colloquial) Wife or girlfriend.

   Harry said he couldn't stop and chat because his missus wanted to go shopping.

   The missus has a list of chores for me to do this weekend.

   • 2006, “Littlest Things”, in Alright, Still, performed by Lily Allen:

     Sometimes I find myself sitting back and reminiscing / Especially when I have to watch other people kissing / And I remember when you started calling me your missus / All the play fighting, all the flirtatious disses

   • 2013, Jeff Jenkins, Watching The World, Andrews UK Limited, →ISBN:

     Imagine you have driven past a restaurant and thought to yourself, 'That would be a nice place to take the missus for an evening out,' and in no time at all you have found yourself flicking through the Yellow Pages in search of the phonenumber.

2. (colloquial) Term of address for a woman.
   • 2013, C. S. Peters, On a Wing and a Prayer, page 161:

     Look ere Missus! Little Joey's me bruvva. E stays wiv me. We aint goin ter be split up.

• Mrs. (US, Canada)
• Mrs (UK)

• miss
• mister
• mistress
• madam
• maiden
• maid
• master
• matron

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmis.sus/, [ˈmɪs̠ːʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmis.sus/, [ˈmisːus]

mittō (“to send, to shoot, to let”) +‎ -tus.

missus m (genitive missūs); fourth declension

1. a sending, dispatching
2. a throwing, hurling, cast, shot
3. (in the public games) a round
4. (of a meal) a course

Fourth-declension noun.

Perfect passive participle of mittō (“send, dispatch”)

missus (feminine missa, neuter missum); first/second-declension participle

1. sent, having been sent, caused to go, having been caused to go
   • 4th century, St Jerome, Vulgate, Tobit 3:25

     et missus est angelus Domini sanctus Rafahel ut curaret ambos quorum uno tempore fuerat oratio in conspectu Domini recitata

     And the holy angel of the Lord, Raphael was sent to heal them both, whose prayers at one time were rehearsed in the sight of the Lord.

2. let go, having been let go, released, having been released, discharged, having been discharged
3. thrown, having been thrown, hurled, having been hurled, cast, having been cast, launched, having been launched
4. sent out, having been sent out, emitted, having been emitted
5. uttered, having been uttered
6. dismissed, having been dismissed, disregarded, having been disregarded
7. put to an end, having been put to an end

First/second-declension adjective.

• missa
• missiō

• Catalan: mes
• English: mess
• French: mis
• Old French: mets, mes
• Italian: messo

• “missus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “missus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• missus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• missus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to speak without circumlocution: missis ambagibus dicere
    
  • correspondence: litterae missae et allatae
    
  • (ambiguous) a letter to Atticus: epistula ad Atticum data, scripta, missa or quae ad A. scripta est