missile meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

missile

noun

UK /ˈmɪs.aɪl/ · CA, US /ˈmɪs.(ə)l/

Etymology From Latin missile (“thrown weapon, projectile”), neuter of missilis (“throwable, capable of being thrown”), from mittere (“to send”). From 1611. Compare Middle French missile (“projectile”), from 1636.

Any object used as a weapon by being thrown or fired through the air, such as stone, arrow or bullet.

The Rhodians, who used leaden bullets, were able to project their missiles twice as far as the Persian slingers, who used large stones.
And I saw askant the armies, / I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, / Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them, / And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, / And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) / And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:

1 more example

Riot officers and police on horseback were deployed to disperse the crowns, but they came under attack from bottles, fireworks and other missiles.2012, Paragraph 24, R v Blackshaw (2012) WLR 1126

Government, Military, Politics, War A self-propelled projectile whose trajectory can be adjusted after it is launched.

That missile is explosive enough to kill hundreds.

Antonyms: nonmissile
Derived terms: antimissile, missileer, missile farm, missile gap, missilelike, missileman, missileproof, missilery, missile silo, steely-eyed missile man
Related terms: mess, message, messenger, mission, missionary, missive, projectile, rocket
Hyponyms: air-to-air missile, air-to-surface missile, anti-ballistic missile, antiballistic missile, antimissile, anti-ship missile, antiship missile, ballistic missile, cruise missile, Euromissile, guided missile, hypermissile, hypersonic missile, intercontinental ballistic missile, Patriot missile, submissile, supermissile, surface-to-air missile, surface-to-surface missile, TOW missile