different between jealous vs mistrustful

English

Etymology

[1382] From Middle English jelous, gelous, gelus, from Old French jalous, from Late Latin zelosus, from Ancient Greek ????? (zêlos, “zeal, jealousy”). Doublet of zealous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d??l?s/
• Hyphenation: jeal?ous
• Rhymes: -?l?s

Adjective

jealous (comparative jealouser or more jealous, superlative jealousest or most jealous)

1. Suspecting rivalry in love; troubled by worries that one might have been replaced in someone's affections; suspicious of a lover's or spouse's fidelity. [from 13th c.]
2. Protective, zealously guarding, careful in the protection of something one has or appreciates. [from 14th c.]

   For you must not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jehovah, is a jealous God. —Exodus 34:14 (NET)

3. Envious; feeling resentful or angered toward someone for a perceived advantage or success, material or otherwise. [from 14th c.]
4. Suspecting, suspicious.

Usage notes

Some usage guides seek to distinguish "jealous" from “envious”, using jealous to mean “protective of one’s own position or possessions” – one “jealously guards what one has” – and envious to mean “desirous of others’ position or possessions” – one “envies what others have”. This distinction is also maintained in the psychological and philosophical literature. However, this distinction is not always reflected in usage, as reflected in the quotations of famous authors (above) using the word jealous in the sense “envious (of the possessions of others)”.

Derived terms

• jealous-like adjective
• jealously adverb
• jealousy noun
• jealousness noun

Related terms

• zeal
• zealot
• zealous

Translations

References

Anagrams

• jalouse

English

Etymology

mistrust +? -ful

Adjective

mistrustful (comparative more mistrustful, superlative most mistrustful)

1. Having mistrust, lacking trust (in someone or something).
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act IV, Scene 2,^[1]

     […] I hold it cowardice

     To rest mistrustful where a noble heart

     Hath pawn’d an open hand in sign of love;

   • 1910, Ian Hay, The Right Stuff, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book Two, Chapter Sixteen, p. 284,^[2]

     In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.

2. Expressing or showing a lack of trust.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book III, Canto 12, p. 579,^[3]

     He lookt askew with his mistrustfull eyes,

     And nycely trode, as thornes lay in his way

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, London: Smith, Elder & Co., Volume I, Chapter 10, p. 160,^[4]

     At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter; accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J. E.

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Chapter 2,^[5]

     He led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a most mistrustful expression […]

3. Having a suspicion, imagining or supposing (that something undesirable is the case).
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book 2, Chapter 15,^[6]

     The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no.

4. (obsolete) Causing mistrust, suspicions, or forebodings.
   • 1582, Richard Stanihurst (translator), Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, Book 3, p. 60^[7]

     Vp we gad, owt spredding oure sayls and make to the seaward:

     Al creeks mistrustful with Greekish countrye refusing.

   • 1593 William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis,^[8]

     […] stonish’d as night-wanderers often are,

     Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood,

     Even so confounded in the dark she lay,

     Having lost the fair discovery of her way.

Synonyms

• (having mistrust): distrustful, suspicious, untrusting, wary

Derived terms

• mistrustfully (adv)
• mistrustfulness (n)

References

• mistrustful in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.