ppl. a. [the phrase a-missing (see A prep.1 12, 13) erroneously taken as a single word, as if from a vb. to amiss; chiefly in Scotch writers.] = MISSING; wanting.
1634–46. J. Row (father), Hist. Kirk (1842), 131. The Kirk-Register being amissing.
1680. Kid, in Spirit of Popery, 7. A Publick Spirit in contending for God … is much amissing amongst us.
1753. Stewart’s Trial, App. 84. The deponent … does not know by what means the said lock … now amissing, was lost.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm. (1858), 10. Only his sloop was amissing.
1873. Burton, Hist. Scotl., V. lvii. Examined as to what he had done with the valuables amissing.
