Tuesday, September 25, 2012

missal, missile

Missal or missal means a religious book with prayers or readings for each day--
Her grandmother gave her a missal as a confirmation present.
She was a religious woman, and read from her missal each day.

Missile or missile ( rhymes with missal ) means something that is shot,  fired or thrown--
The movie about the missing nuclear missile gave him nightmares.
He helped to design a guided missile that could hit a target 2,000 miles away.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"The movie about a nuclear holocaust made her wonder if her missal had a special prayer in case of a missile attack."

Note --"missel" is a type of European thrush--a bird, aslo spelled "mistle" --
The missel thrush may be found feeding on mistletoe.

2 comments:

  1. missile rhymes with facile but not missal.

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  2. Missile does NOT rhyme with missal or whistle -- only in American English speech, not in any other English speech.

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