Misty

How to spell misty

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce misty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does misty mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with or full of mist; hazy, or blurred as if seen through mist.

Misty in a sentence

• The early commute was slow because the motorway was cold and misty.

• A misty morning hung over the valley until the sun finally broke through.

Where does misty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from the Old English noun 'mist', which meant a fine fog or a dimness of vision, and which traces back to a shared Germanic root also seen in Dutch 'mist' and related forms across the northern European languages. That root is connected to an even older Indo-European sense of cloudiness or darkening, the same family that gives us words for clouded or obscured sight. The adjective 'misty' was formed simply by adding the native English suffix '-y', meaning 'full of' or 'covered with', so it literally means 'full of mist'. This pattern of noun plus '-y' is one of the oldest and most regular ways English builds descriptive words, as in 'cloudy', 'rainy' and 'foggy'. From the literal weather sense it broadened to describe anything blurred or tearful, as when eyes grow misty with emotion. Because both the noun and the suffix are thoroughly native, the spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• mist (from Old English mist: fog, haze)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by')