means a projectile or self-propelled weapon designed to be thrown, fired, or launched at a target, often guided over long distances.

from From Latin missilis, 'that which can be thrown,' from mittere, 'to send' or 'to let go' — the same restless root that gives us mission, dismiss, and emit. So a missile is, quite literally, a thing sent: the verb 'to send' hardened into a weapon. It entered English in the 1600s meaning any thrown thing — a stone, a dart — and only in the 20th century did it acquire its sleeker, more catastrophic modern sense.