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MISGIVING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Doubt about someone's honesty
Synonyms:
distrust; misgiving; mistrust; suspicion
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("misgiving" is a kind of...):
doubt; doubtfulness; dubiety; dubiousness; incertitude; uncertainty (the state of being unsure of something)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Painful expectation
Synonyms:
apprehension; misgiving
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("misgiving" is a kind of...):
expectation; outlook; prospect (belief about (or mental picture of) the future)
Derivation:
misgive (suggest fear or doubt)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Uneasiness about the fitness of an action
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("misgiving" is a kind of...):
anxiety (a vague unpleasant emotion that is experienced in anticipation of some (usually ill-defined) misfortune)
Derivation:
misgive (suggest fear or doubt)
Context examples:
He was following the track, his misgivings increasing with every step which took him nearer to that home which he had never seen, when of a sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread out onto a broad, green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine and droves of black swine wandered unchecked.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I have known him set out in the night, on a misgiving that the light might not be, by some accident, in the window of the old boat, and walk to Yarmouth.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
This, his regular eyebrows, and the rich white, and black, and brown, of his complexion—confound his complexion, and his memory!—made me think him, in spite of my misgivings, a very handsome man.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She was audaciously prejudiced in my favour, and quite unable to understand why I should have any misgivings, or be low-spirited about it.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong—for I feared it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns—though I had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I saw the mild eye of the good old Doctor turned upon me for a moment, and I felt that the confession of my old misgivings and remembrances was too plainly written in my face to be overlooked.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
As I was already much attached to Mr. Dick, and very solicitous for his welfare, my fears favoured this supposition; and for a long time his Wednesday hardly ever came round, without my entertaining a misgiving that he would not be on the coach-box as usual.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I might have a misgiving that I am meandering in stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
