mission

\ \ [16] Mission, etymologically a ‘sending’, is the hub of a large family of English words that come from the Latin verb mittere ‘let go, send’ or its stem miss-. Most are prefixed forms – admit, commit, permit, promise, transmit, etc – but the unadorned verb is represented in mass ‘eucharist’, mess, missile [17] (literally ‘something capable of being sent’), mission itself and its derivative missionary [17], and missive [15] (‘something sent’). The source of mittere is not known, but what does seem clear is that it originally meant ‘let go, throw’. This subsequently developed to ‘send’ and, in the post-classical period, to ‘put’ (hence French metre ‘put’).

\ \ Cf.⇒ ADMIT, COMMIT, MESS, MESSAGE, MISSILE, MISSIVE, PERMIT, PROMISE, SUBMIT, TRANSMIT