mizzly

English

WOTD – 22 March 2024

Etymology

From mizzle (noun) +‎ -y (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, with the sense ‘behaving like, or having natures typical of [the nouns]’).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪzli/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)li/
• Rhymes: -ɪzli
• Hyphenation: mizz‧ly

Adjective

mizzly (comparative more mizzly, superlative most mizzly)

1. (British, chiefly dialectal) Raining in the form of mizzle (“misty rain; drizzle”); drizzly.
   • 1667 February 3 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “January 24th, 1666–1667”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume VI, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC, page 146:

     As late as it was, yet Rolt and Harris would go home to-night, and walked it, though I had a bed for them; and it proved, dark, and a misly night, and very windy.

   • 1865 May – 1866 August, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, chapter XXII, in Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1866, →OCLC, page 211:

     A mizzly, drizzly rain set in before the poor people got home that evening with the body of Clayton Nowell.

   • 2021 December 15, Paul Clifton, “There is Nothing You can Do: A Scotrail Driver”, in Rail, number 946, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 35–36:

     Today is a very mizzly day. Damp in the air, but not actually raining. That's the worst for driving trains in the leaf fall season.

Alternative forms

• misly

Related terms

• mizzle (noun, verb)

Translations

raining in the form of mizzle — see also drizzly

• Finnish: tihkuinen
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• drizzle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “Mizzly, adj.” under Joseph Wright, editor (1903), “MIZZLE, v.¹ and sb.”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume IV (M–Q), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 137, column 2: “drizzing; rainy; misty”