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.
Mistrustful of the pharmaceutical industry and convinced of the superiority of “natural” treatments, consumers spend billions a year on “herbal” and dietary supplements they perceive to be safer and more effective than other treatments.
From Slate • Sep. 29, 2024
Mistrustful as she usually was concerning the sentiments she was wont to arouse, there could be no uncertainty in this case.
From Countess Erika's Apprenticeship by Schubin, Ossip
Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.
From My Friends the Savages Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) by Sanpietro, I. Stone
Mistrustful still of Jove, His heaven he shuns; as mindful of the flames From thence unjustly hurl'd.
From The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II by Howard, J. J.
Mistrustful, he had entered and groped about the dark room.
From The Plow-Woman by Gates, Eleanor
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.
