Mission

Legal Definition and Related Resources of Mission

Meaning of Mission

Synonyms of Mission

noun

  • aim
  • appointment
  • assignment
  • business
  • calling
  • charge
  • commission
  • concern
  • delegation
  • design
  • duty
  • embassy
  • errand
  • goal
  • job
  • legation
  • mandate
  • objective
  • office
  • profession
  • purpose
  • pursuit
  • task
  • trust
  • undertaking
  • venture
  • vocation
  • work

Related Entries of Mission in the Encyclopedia of Law Project

Browse or run a search for Mission in the American Encyclopedia of Law, the Asian Encyclopedia of Law, the European Encyclopedia of Law, the UK Encyclopedia of Law or the Latin American and Spanish Encyclopedia of Law.

Mission in Historical Law

You might be interested in the historical meaning of this term. Browse or search for Mission in Historical Law in the Encyclopedia of Law.

Legal Abbreviations and Acronyms

Search for legal acronyms and/or abbreviations containing Mission in the Legal Abbreviations and Acronyms Dictionary.

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You might be interested in these references tools:

Resource Description
Mission in the Dictionary Mission in our legal dictionaries
Browse the Legal Thesaurus Find synonyms and related words of Mission
Legal Maxims Maxims are established principles that jurists use as interpretive tools, invoked more frequently in international law
Legal Answers (Q&A) A community-driven knowledge creation process, of enduring value to a broad audience
Related topics Mission in the World Encyclopedia of Law

Vocabularies (Semantic Web Information)

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Resource Description
Topic Map A group of names, occurrences and associations
Topic Tree A topic display format, showing the hierarchy
Sitemap Index Sitemap Index, including Taxonomies
https://legaldictionary.lawin.org/mission/ The URI of Mission (more about URIs)

Mission in Diplomatic Law

Mission

A generic term for embassy. Mission also describes the entirety of official representation in a given foreign country which functions under the supervision of the Ambassador, including civilian and military personnel.

Grammar

This term is a noun.

Etimology of Mission

(You may find mission at the world legal encyclopedia and the etimology of more terms).

1590s, “a sending abroad,” originally of Jesuits, from Latin missionem (nominative missio) “act of sending, a dispatching; a release, a setting at liberty; discharge from service, dismissal,” noun of action from past participle stem of mittere “to release, let go; send, throw,” which de Vaan traces to a PIE *m(e)ith- “to exchange, remove,” also source of Sanskrit methete, mimetha “to become hostile, quarrel,” Gothic in-maidjan “to change;” he writes, “From original ‘exchange’, the meaning developed to ‘give, bestow’ … and ‘let go, send’.” Diplomatic sense of “body of persons sent to a foreign land on commercial or political business” is from 1620s. In American English, sometimes “an embassy” (1805). Meaning “dispatch of an aircraft on a military operation” (1929, American English) later extended to spacecraft flights (1962), hence, mission control (1964). As a style of furniture, said to be imitative of furniture in the buildings of original Spanish missions to North America, it is attested from 1900.

Resources

See Also

Further Reading

  • Satow’s Diplomatic Practice, Ivor Roberts
  • Modern Diplomacy, R.P. Barnston

Legal Usage of Mission in English

An European Commission document offers the following explanation about the misused of Mission :’Mission’ has a number of meanings, none of which corresponds to the way it is most commonly used in European Union texts. Generally speaking, missions, in English, are performed by secret agents, astronauts or diplomats. Otherwise they can be the places where priests, nuns, diplomats etc. work abroad (often in developing countries). It never means a business or official trip and we would not say ‘on mission’ in any case. Unfortunately, however, it is a very useful word: we ‘do our mission planning’, ‘go on mission’, fill in a ‘mission order’, spend our ‘mission allowance’, declare our ‘mission expenses’ and do all of this via the ‘mission(s) office’. While it would be difficult to do without the word internally, we should bear in mind that it is likely to be misconstrued by outsiders.

Example

‘With regard to the management of travel orders, the missions office … has systematically coordinated the reservation of plane tickets and hotel rooms and has been able to obtain very reasonable group rates119.’ Alternative Often, at the Court of Auditors, ‘audit/visit’ (‘I wasn’t here last week because I was in Rome for an audit’ (=on mission)), sometimes ‘official trip’, ‘official business’ or just ‘business’ or ‘work’ (‘I was in Rome on business/for work’). NATO, the UN and the Canadian Government often talk of ‘duty travel’.

Resources

Further Reading

  • David Mellinkoff, “Mellinkoff’s Dictionary of American Legal Usage”, West Publishing Company, 1992
  • Bryan A. Garner, “A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage”, West Publishing Company, 1995

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