miss [OE] To miss, meaning ‘to fail to hit’, goes back to Old English. On the surface of it the proverb a miss is as good as a mile is puzzling. The original longer form, from the early 17th century, is clearer: an inch in a miss is as good as an ell (an ell is an old measure of distance, see bow). As a title for a young girl or an unmarried woman miss [E17th] is a shortening of mistress [ME], which itself is from the same Old French root as master (see magistrate).