mistrustful
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mistrustful
Explanation
When you're mistrustful, you have a sneaking suspicion that you should be wary of someone or something. If you're mistrustful of clowns, you keep your distance from them at birthday parties and circuses. If someone is mistrustful, they have a general lack of trust, or a suspicion. You might be mistrustful of things you read online, or mistrustful of teachers who assure you an assignment will be fun, or mistrustful of unfamiliar new foods. This adjective is very closely related to distrustful, although being distrustful is typically based on experience, while being mistrustful is more likely caused by a general sense that something's not trustworthy.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In no small part, Kirk helped fashion the world in which we now find ourselves: Divided, angry, mistrustful of our neighbors and their motives, and at the very least, increasingly violent in rhetoric.
From Salon • Sep. 11, 2025
Moreover, Niger's regime, whose attitude towards the EU as a whole has become almost as mistrustful as its broken relationship with France, continues to seek alternatives to its old Western partnerships.
From BBC • Dec. 7, 2024
The incident left her deeply protective of her art, and mistrustful of sharing it with others.
From New York Times • Jan. 26, 2024
When he sought to set up his company’s flagship inn in the predominantly Arab northern Israeli town of Nazareth in 2005, the structure’s Palestinian owners were at first deeply mistrustful.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 6, 2023
Both men were unbelievers by nature, mistrustful, suspicious.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
