Misc

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A shortened form of miscellaneous, used as a label for items or topics that do not fit any other category
2. An informal abbreviation of miscellaneous, often written on lists, folders, or menus to group leftover entries
3. Shorthand for miscellaneous, marking things that belong to no specific group and are gathered together under one heading

Etymology: "Misc" is a clipped form of "miscellaneous", so its history is really the history of the longer word. That word was borrowed from Latin "miscellāneus", which meant "mixed" and came from "miscellus", itself built on the verb "misceō", "to mix". The Latin root is the same one behind "mix", so a miscellaneous collection is, at bottom, simply a mixture. The clipping is the more recent part. Writers and printers, faced with a long word that needed to fit into a small space such as a catalogue heading, a column label or a note in a margin, shortened it to the familiar three letters, a habit common to many everyday English abbreviations. The abbreviation keeps the sense of the original: a heading marked "misc" gathers together whatever did not belong anywhere else.

Synonyms: miscellaneous, various, mixed

Antonyms: uniform, homogeneous