Mist: a word that never quite cleared

The word mist has kept its shape for more than a thousand years. It comes from Old English ‘mist’, linked to Old Norse ‘mistr’ and the Proto-Indo-European root meigh- meaning ‘to sprinkle’. The same root gives us ‘mistletoe’, once ‘misteltān’—‘dung twig’. English kept the weather sense while other languages drew on the same idea for words meaning drizzle, haze, or even manure.