Mizzle
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Misty rain; drizzle. British, dialectal, uncountable
- 2 very light rain; stronger than mist but less than a shower wordnet
- 3 A mist; a fine spray; a spattering. uncountable
"But he knows he need never be in dread of your blade making a mizzle of his blood or of vengeance arriving ever from this quarter[.]"
- 1 To rain in very fine drops. British, Canada, US, dialectal, intransitive
- 2 To abscond, scram, flee. British
"As long as George IV could reign, he reigned, and then he mizzled."
- 3 rain lightly wordnet
- 4 To yield. intransitive
- 5 To muddle or confuse. (Probably from a misreading of past tense/participle misled.) transitive
Example
More examples"But he knows he need never be in dread of your blade making a mizzle of his blood or of vengeance arriving ever from this quarter[.]"
Etymology
From Late Middle English misellen (“to drizzle”), cognate with Low German miseln, musseln (“to mizzle”), Dutch miezelen (“to drizzle, rain gently”). Of obscure origin, possibly a frequentative related to the base of mist; or, related to Middle Low German mes (“urine”), Middle Dutch mes, mis (“urine”), both from Old Saxon mehs (“urine”), from Proto-Germanic *mihstuz, *mihstaz, *mihsk- (“urine”), from *mīganą (“to urinate”), from Proto-Indo-European *meiǵʰ-, *omeiǵʰ- (“to urinate”). Compare also English micturate (“to urinate”), Old Frisian mese (“urine”), Low German miegen (“to urinate”), Dutch mijgen (“to urinate”), Danish mige (“to urinate”).
Unknown. Perhaps from Shelta mi(e)sli (“go”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.