misgiving

English

Etymology

From misgive, from mis- +‎ give, from Middle English give (“suggest, given”). Compare given and what gives.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪsˈɡɪvɪŋ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

misgiving (plural misgivings)

1. doubt, apprehension, a feeling of dread
   • 1846-1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son:

     He could think of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would have been better if she had not come.

   • 1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie:

     In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

   • 1960 March, J. P. Wilson, E. N. C. Haywood, “The route through the Peak - Derby to Manchester: Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, page 149:

     Having got its Act, the M.B.M. & M.J.R. apparently had misgivings about the route, in view of the very heavy engineering works that would be necessary, and on November 9, 1846, the company gave notice of a further bill for a deviated line, which was passed into law on July 22, 1847.

   • 2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     Zoe was so starving she had stolen a bag of her stepmother’s dreaded prawn cocktail crisps for her dinner. The rat must have been able to smell them on her fingers, and despite Zoe’s grave misgivings about the snack, which bore no relation to prawns or indeed cocktails, the rat didn’t seem to mind.

Usage notes

Almost always used in the plural.

Synonyms

• doubt
• See Thesaurus:apprehension

Translations

Doubts, concerns

• Bulgarian: опасение (bg) n (opasenie)
• Dutch: twijfel (nl) m
• Finnish: epäilys (fi)
• French: état d’âme (fr) m
• German: Zweifel (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient: ἐνθυμία f (enthumía)

• Irish: drochamhras m
• Malayalam: ആശങ്ക (ml) (āśaṅka)
• Maori: mānukanuka, pekerau, raupeka, potau
• Plautdietsch: Bedenkjen n
• Portuguese: preocupações, dúvidas (pt)
• Russian: опасение (ru) n (opasenije), дурное предчувствие n (durnoje predčuvstvije)
• Spanish: recelo (es) m, duda (es) f
• Ukrainian: побоювання n (pobojuvannja), (погане) передчуття m (peredčuttja)

Further reading

• “misgiving”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “misgiving”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.