Dictionary

mistrustful en · ADJ

Pronunciation

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Etymology

From mistrust + -ful.

Meanings

1. Having mistrust, lacking trust (in someone or something).
   • […] I hold it cowardice To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawn’d an open hand in sign of love; c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
   • In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night. 1910, Ian Hay, The Right Stuff, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book Two, Chapter Sixteen, p. 284:
2. Expressing or showing a lack of trust.
   • He lookt askew with his mistrustfull eyes, And nycely trode, as thornes lay in his way 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 579:
   • He led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a most mistrustful expression […] 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 2, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
   • At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter; accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J. E. 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter X, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 160:
3. Having a suspicion, imagining or supposing (that something undesirable is the case).
   • The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no. 1859, Charles Dickens, “Book 2, Chapter 15”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC:
4. (obsolete) Causing mistrust, suspicions, or forebodings.
   • […] stonish’d as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood, Even so confounded in the dark she lay, Having lost the fair discovery of her way. 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC:
   • Vp we gad, owt spredding oure sayls and make to the seaward: Al creeks mistrustful with Greekish countrye refusing. 1582, Richard Stanihurst, transl., Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, Book 3, p. 60:

Forms

Deriveds

mistrustfulness · mistrustfully · unmistrustful

Synonyms

wary (having mistrust) · untrusting (having mistrust) · distrustful (having mistrust) · suspicious (having mistrust)