Etymology : New Latin, Medieval Latin, and Latin; New Latin mission-, missio religious mission, from Medieval Latin, task assigned, from Latin, act of sending, from mittere to send
Pronunciation : mi-sh&n
Function : noun
Date : 1606
1. task, assignment; delegation; errand; religious delegation; building used by a religious delegation. mission\mis"sion\ , v. t. to send on a mission. [mostly used in the form of the past participle.]mission \mis"sion\ , n. [l. missio, fr. mittere, missum, to send: cf. f. mission. see:
missile.].
2. the act of sending, or the state of being sent; a being sent or delegated by authority, with certain powers for transacting business; comission. whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, made emulous missions' mongst the gods themselves.
3. that with which a messenger or agent is charged; an errand; business or duty on which one is sent; a commission. how to begin, how to accomplish best his end of being on earth, and mission high.
4. persons sent; any number of persons appointed to perform any service; a delegation; an embassy. in these ships there should be a mission of three of the fellows or brethren of solomon's house.
5. an assotiation or organization of missionaries; a station or residence of missionaries.
6. an organization for worship and work, dependent on one or more churches.
7. a course of extraordinary sermons and services at a particular place and time for the special purpose of quickening the faith and zeal participants, and of converting unbelievers. --addis & arnold.
8. dismission; discharge from service. [obs.]mission school. (a) a school connected with a mission and conducted by missionaries. (b) a school for the religious instruction of children not having regular church privileges.
9. The act of sending, or the state of being sent; a being sent or delegated by authority, with certain powers for transacting business; comission.
10. That with which a messenger or agent is charged; an errand; business or duty on which one is sent; a commission.
11. Persons sent; any number of persons appointed to perform any service; a delegation; an embassy.
12. An assotiation or organization of missionaries; a station or residence of missionaries.
13. An organization for worship and work, dependent on one or more churches.
14. A course of extraordinary sermons and services at a particular place and time for the special purpose of quickening the faith and zeal participants, and of converting unbelievers.
15. Dismission; discharge from service.
16. To send on a mission. the organized work of a religious missionary a special assignment that is given to a person or group; "a confidential mission to London"; "his charge was deliver a message" an operation that is assigned by a higher headquarters; "the planes were on a bombing mission" an organization of missionaries in a foreign land sent to carry on religious work.
17. 1. A mission is an important task that people are given to do, especially one that involves travelling to another country. Salisbury sent him on a diplomatic mission to North America the most crucial stage of his latest peace mission.
18. A mission is a group of people who have been sent to a foreign country to carry out an official task. a senior member of a diplomatic mission. = delegation.
19. A mission is a special journey made by a military aeroplane or space rocket. a bomber that crashed during a training mission in the west Texas mountains. the first shuttle mission.
20. If you say that you have a mission, you mean that you have a strong commitment and sense of duty to do or achieve something. He viewed his mission in life as protecting the weak from the evil = vocation.
21. A mission is the activities of a group of Christians who have been sent to a place to teach people about Christianity. They say God spoke to them and told them to go on a mission to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Organized effort to spread the Christian faith. St. Paul evangelized much of Asia Minor and Greece, and the new religion spread rapidly along the trade routes of the Roman Empire. The advance of Christianity slowed with the disintegration of the Roman Empire after AD 500 and the growth of Arab power in the 7th-8th century, but Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries continued to spread the faith in western and northern Europe, while missionaries of the Greek church in Constantinople worked in eastern Europe and Russia. Missions to Islamic areas and Asia began in the medieval period, and when Spain, Portugal, and France established overseas empires in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic church sent missionaries to the Americas and the Philippines. A renewed wave of Roman Catholic missionary work in the 19th century focused on Africa and Asia. Protestant churches were slower to undertake foreign missions, but in the 19th and early 20th century there was a great upsurge in Protestant missionary activity. Missionary work continues today, though it is often discouraged by the governments of former European colonies that have won independence.