mere

See also mère, Mere, and -mere

English

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

Etymologies 1, 2, 3 and 4

• (RP) IPA: /mɪə/, SAMPA: /mI@/
• (GenAm) IPA: /mɪɚ/, SAMPA: /mI@`/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology 5

• IPA: /ˈmɛɹi/, SAMPA: /"mEri/

Etymology 1

Old English mere, from Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri. Cognate with Dutch meer, German Meer, Norwegian mar (only used in combinations, such as marbakke); and (from Indo-European) with Latin mare, Breton mor, Russian море.

Alternative forms

• meer, meere, mear

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. (obsolete) the sea
2. (dialectal or literary) a pool; a small lake or pond; marsh
   • 1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber & Faber 2005, p. 194:

     Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.

Derived terms

• mereswine
• mermaid
• merman
• merfolk

Etymology 2

From Middle English, from Old English mǣre (“boundary, limit”), from Proto-Germanic *mērijan (“boundary”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to fence”). Cognate with Dutch meer (“a limit, boundary”), Icelandic mærr (“borderland”), Swedish landamäre (“border, borderline, boundary”).

Alternative forms

• meer, meere, mear, meare

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.ix:

     The Troian Brute did first that Citie found, / And Hygate made the meare thereof by West, / And Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.

Verb

mere (third-person singular simple present meres, present participle mereing, simple past and past participle mereed)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
2. (intransitive, obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.

Etymology 3

From Middle English, from Old English mǣre (“famous, great, excellent, sublime, splendid, pure, sterling”), from Proto-Germanic *mērijaz (“excellent, famous”), from Proto-Indo-European *mēros (“large, handsome”). Cognate with Middle High German mære (“famous”), Icelandic mærr (“famous”).

Alternative forms

• meere, mare

Adjective

mere (comparative more mere, superlative most mere)

1. (obsolete) famous.

Etymology 4

Anglo-Norman meer, from Old French mier, from Latin merus.

Adjective

mere (comparative (not attested), superlative merest)

1. (obsolete) pure, unalloyed [8th-17th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I.56:

     Meere [transl. pure] ignorance, and wholy relying on others, was verily more profitable and wiser, than is this verball, and vaine knowledge [...].

2. (obsolete) nothing less than; complete, downright [15th-18th c.]
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.3.7:

     If every man might have what he would [...] we should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.

3. just, only; no more than [from 16th c.]

   I saved a mere 10 pounds this week.

Translations

the smallest amount

Dutch: schamel (nl), luttel (nl) Finnish: pelkkä (fi) Hungarian: puszta (hu), csupán (hu)

Polish: zaledwie (pl) Serbo-Croatian: пуки (sh) m., пука (sh) f., пуко (sh) n. Spanish: mero (es)

Etymology 5

Maori mere (“more”).

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. a Maori war-club

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: condition · sleep · ex · #688: mere · agreement · ship · third

Anagrams

• erme

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Anglo-Norman

Etymology

Latin mater.

Noun

mere f. (oblique plural meres, nominative singular mere, nominative plural meres)

1. mother (female family member)

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Danish

Etymology

From Old Norse meiri (“more”).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /meːrə/, [ˈmeːɐ]

Adjective

mere

1. more

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Estonian

Noun

mere

1. Genitive singular form of meri.

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Italian

Adjective

mere f.

1. Feminine plural of mero

Anagrams

• erme

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Latin

Verb

merē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

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Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch mēro, from Proto-Germanic *maizô.

Adjective

mere (superlative meest)

1. greater, larger
2. older

Antonyms

• minre

Determiner

mere (superlative meest)

1. more

Antonyms

• minre

Adverb

mere (superlative meest)

1. more, to a greater degree

Synonyms

• mee

Antonyms

• min
• minre

Descendants

• Dutch: meer

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Middle French

Etymology

Latin mater.

Noun

mere f. (plural meres)

1. mother (female family member)

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Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri (“sea”). Cognate with Old Saxon meri (Dutch meer), Old High German meri (German Meer), Old Norse marr (Swedish mar). The Indo-European root is also the source of Latin mare, Old Irish muir (Breton mor), Old Church Slavonic море (Russian море), Lithuanian mãre.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈmere/

Noun

mere m.

1. sea, ocean
2. lake, body of water

Declension

    Declension of mere (strong a-stem)

	Singular	Plural
nominative	mer	meras
accusative	mer	meras
genitive	meres	mera
dative	mere	merum

Descendants

• English: mere

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Old French

Etymology

Latin mater.

Noun

mere f. (oblique plural meres, nominative singular mere, nominative plural meres)

1. mother (female family member)

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Romanian

Noun

mere n. pl.

1. Plural form of măr.