# missile
## English
### Etymology

From Latin missile (“thrown weapon, projectile”), neuter of missilis (“throwable, capable of being thrown”), from mittere (“to send”). From 1611. Compare Middle French missile (“projectile”), from 1636.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) enPR: mĭsʹīl, IPA: /ˈmɪsaɪl/
* (General American, Canada) enPR: mĭsʹīl, mĭsʹəl, IPA: /ˈmɪs(ə)l/, /-aɪl/
* Audio (General American):(file)Audio:(file)
* Homophone: missal (GA, Canada)
* Rhymes: -ɪsaɪl, -ɪsəl
* Hyphenation: mis‧sile

### Noun

missile (plural missiles)
* Any object used as a weapon by being thrown or fired through the air, such as stone, arrow or bullet. [from 17th c.]
    The Rhodians, who used leaden bullets, were able to project their missiles twice as far as the Persian slingers, who used large stones.
** 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:And I saw askant the armies, / I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, / Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them, / And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, / And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) / And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.
** 2012, Paragraph 24, R v Blackshaw (2012) WLR 1126:
    Riot officers and police on horseback were deployed to disperse the crowns, but they came under attack from bottles, fireworks and other missiles.
* (military) A self-propelled projectile whose trajectory can be adjusted after it is launched. [from 20th c.]
    That missile is explosive enough to kill hundreds.

#### Derived terms

* air-to-air missile
* air-to-surface missile
* antiballistic missile
* anti-ballistic missile
* anti-ship missile
* antiship missile
* ballistic missile
* cruise missile
* Euromissile
* guided missile
* intercontinental ballistic missile
* missileer
* missile farm
* missile gap
* missile silo
* Patriot missile
* steely-eyed missile man
* surface-to-air missile
* surface-to-surface missile

#### Related terms

* mess
* message
* messenger
* mission
* missionary
* missive

#### See also

* projectile
* rocket

#### Further reading

* “missile”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* “missile”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
* James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Missile”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume VI, Part 2 (M–N), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 540, column 3.

### Anagrams

* mislies, similes, slimies, smilies

## French
### Etymology

Inherited from Middle French, from Latin missilis (“that may be thrown”) (as in English).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /mi.sil/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

missile m (plural missiles)
* missile
* (slang) bombshell, hottie
    Synonyms: avion de chasse, bombe, frappe

#### Derived terms

* missile à tête chercheuse

### Further reading

* “missile”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Italian
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈmis.si.le/
* Rhymes: -issile
* Hyphenation: mìs‧si‧le

### Noun

missile m (plural missili)
* missile

### Adjective

missile (plural missili)
* (relational) missile

## Latin
### Etymology

From missilis.

### Noun

missile n (genitive missilis); third declension
* a thrown weapon, such as a javelin
* (plural) presents from the Emperor thrown to the people
* (New Latin) a missile (self-propelled projectile)
** 2018, Tuomo Pekkanen, Foederatio occidentalis Syriam missilibus percussit , Nuntii Latini 20.4.2018:
    USA, Britannia, Francia mane Sabbati plus centum missilia in tres metas Syriacas miserunt, in quibus arma chemica conficiebantur et tractabantur.The US, UK, and France Saturday morning fired over a hundred missiles at three Syrian sites in which chemical weapons were being built and stored.

#### Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, “pure” i-stem).

#### Synonyms

* (javelin): tēlum, iaculum

### Adjective

missile
* nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of missilis

### References

* “missilis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “missilis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* missile in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.