mission: [16] Mission, etymologically a ‘sending’, is the hub of a large family of English words that come from the Latin verb mittere ‘let go, send’ or its stem miss-. Most are prefixed forms – admit, commit, permit, promise, transmit, etc – but the unadorned verb is represented in mass ‘eucharist’, mess, missile [17] (literally ‘something capable of being sent’), mission itself and its derivative missionary [17], and missive [15] (‘something sent’).
The source of mittere is not known, but what does seem clear is that it originally meant ‘let go, throw’. This subsequently developed to ‘send’ and, in the post-classical period, to ‘put’ (hence French metre ‘put’). => admit, commit, mess, message, missile, missive, permit, promise, submit, transmit
mission (n.)
1590s, "a sending abroad," originally of Jesuits, from Latin missionem (nominative missio) "act of sending, a despatching; a release, a setting at liberty; discharge from service, dismissal," noun of action from past participle stem of mittere "to send," oldest form probably *smittere, of unknown origin.
Diplomatic sense of "body of persons sent to a foreign land on commercial or political business" is from 1620s. In American English, sometimes "an embassy" (1805). Meaning "dispatch of an aircraft on a military operation" (1929, American English) later extended to spacecraft flights (1962), hence, mission control (1964). As a style of furniture, said to be imitative of furniture in the buildings of original Spanish missions to North America, it is attested from 1900.
实用例句
1. Their mission is simply to scout out places where helicopters can land.
他们的任务只是找到能够让直升机着陆的地方。
来自柯林斯例句
2. There is an enormous sense of mission in his speech and gesture.
他的一言一行都带着强烈的使命感。
来自柯林斯例句
3. His function is vital to the accomplishment of the agency's mission.
要完成该机构的使命，他的作用至关重要。
来自柯林斯例句
4. I was heading on a secret mission that made my flesh crawl.
我正要执行一项让我心惊肉跳的秘密任务。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Even as a humanitarian mission it has been only a qualified success.
