To miss means to fail to hit, catch, or reach something you were aiming for. When a basketball player shoots and the ball bounces off the rim, that's a miss. When you try to catch a ball and it slips past your hands, you missed it.

The word extends to failing to catch anything you were trying to reach. You might miss the bus if you arrive at the stop thirty seconds too late, or miss a chance to see a rare bird if you look away at the wrong moment. When you miss a question on a test, you got it wrong.

Miss also means to feel sad about someone's absence. When your best friend moves to another state, you miss them because you wish they were still nearby. You might miss your grandmother between visits, or miss summer vacation when school starts again. This kind of missing can create an empty feeling where something good used to be.

When something is missing, it's absent or lost, like a missing puzzle piece or a missing sock. And when you say you missed something someone said, you didn't hear or understand it, so you might ask them to repeat it.

As a noun, Miss is also a polite title used before the name of a girl or an unmarried woman, like Miss Garcia or Miss Lee.