misle

misle

See also: mįslė, mįslę, and mįsle

English

Etymology 1

Probably a blend of mist +‎ drizzle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪzəɫ/

Noun

misle (uncountable)

1. A fine rain or thick mist; mizzle.

Verb

misle (third-person singular simple present misles, present participle misling, simple past and past participle misled)

1. To rain in fine drops; to mizzle.
   • 1792, The Prose Epitome, page 323:

     I know a woman of fashion, who is perpetually employed in remarks upon the weather, who observes from morning to noon, that it is likely to rain, and from noon to night, that it spits, that it misles, that it is set in for a wet evening; and, being incapable of any other discourse, is as insipid a companion and just as pedantic as he who quotes Aristotle over his tea, or talks Greek at a card-table.

Etymology 2

From misled, the standard irregular past tense of mislead, being misconstrued as *misle +‎ -ed.

Verb

misle (third-person singular simple present misles, present participle misling, simple past and past participle misled)

1. (nonstandard, rare) To mislead.
   • 1955 June, Ralph A. Lewin, “letter to Joshua Lederberg”, in Profiles in Science, U.S. National Library of Medicine:

     I think Caspari has been misling you somewhat on the subject of Scenedesmus: the cells divide essentially as in Chlorella, but stay in 4 or 8-celled colonies until the next division.

   • 1994, District of Columbia Register - Volume 41, Issues 1-5, page 423:

     The conduct of the agency coupled with the D. C. Office of Personnel amounts to misling [sic] the appellant as to her [sic] appeal rights to detrimentally rely upon the conduct of her [sic] agency.

   • 1999, Susan Leslie Holbrook, Misled, →ISBN, page 37:

     Very early I had a relationship to the language of transgression and subversion. i was not as precocious. when i was younger i didn't know when i was on the wrong side of the Law. my errors, my subversions, were unconscious, secreted and embraced somehow by my skin, nerves, blood, a body theatened by language which was slowly misling it.

   • 1999 January 10, Bill, “Riverside Toxicology back! More hypocracy!”, in alt.law-enforcement, Usenet‎:

     You're comparing calls for service to patrolling as a security guard, you know it and you should be ashamed for misling and lying.

   • 2014 March 21, Rob Bannister, “set as in set meal”, in alt.usage.english, Usenet‎:

     So Gordon Ramsay is misling his entire American audience? They never actually discuss the "garnish," but on the rare occasions when he yells at someone for screwing up a "garnish," it's always a potato or vegetable.

   • 2014 September 21, “Peter T. Daniels”, in alt.usage.english, Usenet‎:

     Once again youse guys were misling me with "Asian" -- I wondered whether it might relate somehow to Singapore-Chinese "la," which serves a similar function.

Further reading

• misle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Imels, Liems, Miles, limes, miles, milse, slime, smile