Missile

How to spell missile

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce missile

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does missile mean?

1. nounA weapon that is launched or thrown to strike a distant target, especially a self-propelled rocket carrying explosives.

Missile in a sentence

• The navy test-fired a long-range missile over the ocean.

• Engineers spent years designing the guidance system for the new missile.

Where does missile come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin missilis, meaning 'capable of being thrown', which was built on the verb mittere, 'to send' or 'to let go', and its past participle missus. In classical Latin a missile was literally a weapon you launched at an enemy, such as a spear, a javelin, or a stone. English adopted the word in the early 1600s, at first as an adjective in phrases like 'missile weapons', before it settled into use as a noun for any projectile. The same mittere root quietly powers a whole family of English words, including 'mission', 'dismiss', 'transmit', and 'permit', all of which carry the underlying idea of sending. The spelling trap is the doubled s followed by the -ile ending, which is easy to confuse with the unrelated 'missal', a book of prayers, even though the two are pronounced differently.

How the word is built

• miss- (from Latin mittere/missus: to send, throw)
• -ile (adjective/noun suffix: able to be)