misses

Pluralmisseses

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of miss.

   The pitcher misses the strike zone whenever he gets tired.

   Whenever she travels, she misses her family back home.

   Note

   The he/she/it form carries every meaning of the verb, but they do not all behave alike. The hitting and avoiding meanings can stand without an object (the shot misses), while the longing meaning always needs one: she misses her family, never simply she misses. The same holds for failing to attend or attain something, so you say that someone misses the meeting or misses the target.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of miss.

   The archer counted three misses before her first clean hit.

   A row of young misses sat chatting at the back of the hall.

   Note

   The regular -es plural, added because miss already ends in a hissing s. It counts failures of every kind the singular names: an archer's misses, a processor's cache misses when data must be fetched afresh, a snooker player's foul misses that the referee can order replayed. The same spelling also serves as the verb's he/she form, so only the grammar around it, whether a determiner or a subject, tells the reader which is meant.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A category of women's clothing sizes cut for an adult of medium height and proportions.

   The retailer expanded its misses line to include more office wear.

   Many shoppers find that misses fits them better than the junior cut.

4. 4
   nouncolloquial

   Alternative spelling of missus.

   I'd better run it past the misses before I say yes.

   He spent his whole bonus on a gift for the misses.

   Note

   A respelling of missus that keeps all of its colloquial warmth: "the misses" is a partner's way of saying wife or girlfriend, and it can also be used to address a woman directly. Here the -es is part of the word, not a plural ending, so its own plural doubles up as misseses. Keep it to casual talk and writing; in a formal letter the title is Mrs.

Showing meanings only. Show all 4