mischief, misfortune, disaster. Merry Wives, iv. 2. 76; Much Ado, i. 3. 13.
misconster, to misconstrue. Shirley, Love in a Maze, ii. 1. 8. See [conster].
miscreaunce, misbelief, false belief. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 8. 51; Shep. Kal., May, 91. F. mescreance (Cotgr.).
misdeem, to judge amiss of, to think evil of. Spenser, F. Q. i. 7. 49; iii. 10. 29; Milton, P. R. i. 424; to judge amiss, id., P. L. ix. 301.
misken, a ‘mixen’, a manure-heap. Fletcher, Nightwalker, iii. 1 (Toby). A west-midland pronunc. of mixen (EDD.).
miskin, a little bagpipe. Drayton, Pastorals, ii. 5. A dimin. (through Dutch?) of OF. muse, a bagpipe, cp. F. musette, a little bagpipe (Cotgr.).
misprise, to mistake; ‘Misprise me not’, B. Jonson, Case is Altered, iii. 3 (Maximilian). See [mesprize].
mister: in phr. what mister wight, Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 23; iii. 7. 14, i.e. a man of what ‘mister’ (occupation), or, a man of what class, what kind of a man. The idiom occurs as an archaism in Spenser, borrowed from Chaucer, ‘But telleth me what mister men ye been’ (C. T. A. 1710). So we find, what mister thing, what kind of thing, Beaumont and Fl., Little French Lawyer, ii. 3. 19; such myster saying, such a kind of saying, Shep. Kal., Sept., 103. Mister (or mester) is very common in ME. in the sense of office, employment, business. OF. mestier (F. métier); Med. L. misterium, for ministerium (Ducange).
mister, to be necessary or needful; ‘As for my name, it mistreth not to tell’, Spenser, F. Q. iii. 7. 51. From mister, need, necessity, want; cp. Scottish proverb, ‘Mister maks man o’ craft’, Ray’s Proverbs (ed. Bohn, 250); Ferguson, Proverbs (ed. 1641, p. 24). See EDD. (s.v. Mister, vb. 1 and 3). ME. mistere, need (Cursor M. 3247); OF. (Norman) mestier, ‘besoin, nécessité’ (Moisy). The same word as [mister], above.
mistery, occupation, profession. Spenser, Mother Hubberd, 221. ME. misterye (Chaucer, C. T. I. 890); Med. L. misterium, ‘officium’ (Ducange). See [mister].