mislike

English

Etymology

From Middle English misliken, from Old English mislīcian (“to displease, disquiet”); corresponding to mis- +‎ like. Cognate with Old High German misselīchēn (“to displease”), Swedish misslika, Icelandic mislíka (“to dislike”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪˈslʌɪk/

Verb

mislike (third-person singular simple present mislikes, present participle misliking, simple past and past participle misliked)

1. (archaic) To displease. [from 9th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.viii:

     Mote not mislike you also to abate / Your zealous hast, till morrow next againe / Both light of heauen, and strength of men relate [...].

2. To dislike; to disapprove of; to have aversion to. [from 13th c.]
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 167:

     Mor. Miſlike me not for my complexion, / The ſhadowed liuerie of the burniſht ſunne, / To whom I am a neighbour,and neere bred. / Bring me the faireſt creature North-ward borne, / Where Phœbus fire ſcarce thawes the yſicles, / And let vs make inciſion for your loue, / To proue whoſe blood is reddeſt,his or mine.

   • I. Taylor

     Who may like or mislike what he says.

   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 130:

     And she found she didn't mislike him any longer, she felt queer and strange to him, not feared […] .

   • 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate 2010, p. 492:

     ‘Much as we may mislike her talk of the late cardinal appearing to her, and devils in her bedchamber, she speaks in this way because she has been taught to ape the claims of certain nuns who went before her […] .’

Derived terms

• misliker

Anagrams

• Mileski, milkies

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Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse mislíka

Verb

mislike (imperative mislik, present tense misliker, simple past mislikte, past participle mislikt, present participle mislikende)

1. to dislike

References

• “mislike” in The Bokmål Dictionary.