noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   doubt, apprehension, a feeling of dread

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

2. 2
   doubt about someone's honesty wordnet
3. 3
   painful expectation wordnet
4. 4
   uneasiness about the fitness of an action (particularly for reasons of ethics, morals or propriety) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

apprehensionapprehensiondoubtscrupleagitatedagitation

Example

More examples

"Happy days of childish credulity, when fact and fiction were swallowed alike without a misgiving!"

Etymology

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

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.