Adjective
mistrustful (comparative more mistrustful, superlative most mistrustful)
- Having mistrust, lacking trust (in someone or something).
c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:[…] I hold it cowardice
To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
Hath pawn’d an open hand in sign of love;
1910, Ian Hay, The Right Stuff, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book Two, Chapter Sixteen, p. 284:In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.
- Expressing or showing a lack of trust.
1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter X, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 160:At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter; accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J. E.
- Having a suspicion, imagining or supposing (that something undesirable is the case).
- (obsolete) Causing mistrust, suspicions, or forebodings.
1582, Richard Stanihurst, transl., Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, Book 3, p. 60:Vp we gad, owt spredding oure sayls and make to the seaward:
Al creeks mistrustful with Greekish countrye refusing.