Mist: a word that never quite cleared

‘Mist’ has kept its form and meaning for over a thousand years. From the Proto-Indo-European root meigh- ‘to sprinkle’, it connects to Old Norse ‘mistr’ and to ‘mistletoe’—once ‘misteltān’, the ‘dung twig’. English kept the weather sense while its relatives shifted toward drizzle, haze, or muck