mere

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See also: Mere, mère, merë, -mere, and mēre

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation[edit]

(body of water; limit; famous; just, only):
(Maori war-club):
  • IPA(key): /ˈmɛɹi/, /ˈmɛɹɛ/

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English mere, from Old English mere (“the sea; mere, lake”), from Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri. Cognate with West Frisian mar, Dutch meer, Low German meer, Meer, German Meer, Norwegian mar (only used in combinations, such as marbakke). Related to Latin mare, Breton mor, Russian мо́ре (móre). Doublet of mar and mare.

Alternative forms[edit]

Noun[edit]

mere (plural meres)

  1. (dialectal or literary) A body of standing water, such as a lake or a pond. More specifically, it can refer to a lake that is broad in relation to its depth. Also included in place names such as Windermere.
    • 1622, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 20 p. 16[1]:
      When making for the Brooke, the Falkoner doth espie
      On River, Plash, or Mere, where store of Fowle doth lye:
    • 1791, Oliver Goldsmith, An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VIII), new edition, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], OCLC 877622212:
      The meres of Shropshire and Chesbire.
    • 1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, III, or IV), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., OCLC 2392685:
      As a tempest influences the sluggish waters of the deadest mere.
    • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], OCLC 911789798:
      A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink
      To westward - in the deeps whereof a mere,
      Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl,
      Under the half-dead sunset glared
    • 1913, Annie S. Swan, The Fairweathers
      She loved.. to watch the lovely shadows in the silent depths of the placid mere.
    • 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[edit]
Derived terms

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English mere, from Old English mǣre, ġemǣre (“boundary; limit”), from Proto-Germanic *mairiją (“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[edit]

Noun[edit]

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.
Derived terms[edit]

Verb[edit]

mere (third-person singular simple present meres, present participle mering, simple past and past participle mered)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.
  3. (cartography) To decide upon the position of a boundary; to position it on a map.
    • 2016 April 1, David EM Andrews, “Merely a question of boundaries.”, in Sheetlines‎[2], The Charles Close Society, ISSN 0962-8207:
      What chance is there of revising this example of case law to include an exception to the generally cited rule when an administrative boundary has been mered in the past to coincide with a private property boundary?
Related terms[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

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

Alternative forms[edit]

Adjective[edit]

mere (comparative more mere, superlative most mere)

  1. (obsolete) Famous.

Etymology 4[edit]

From Anglo-Norman meer, from Old French mier, from Latin merus. Perhaps influenced by Old English mǣre (“famous, great, excellent, sublime, splendid, pure, sterling”), or conflated with Etymology 3.

Adjective[edit]

mere (comparative merer, superlative merest)

  1. (obsolete) Pure, unalloyed [8th-17thc.].
  2. (obsolete) Nothing less than; complete, downright [15th-18thc.].
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970, partition II, section 3, member 7:
      If every man might have what he would […] we should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
    • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol I, ch. 35:
      This freedom of expostulation exalted his mother's ire to meer frenzy […] .
  3. Just, only; no more than, pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected. [from 16thc.]
    • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:
      Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; […].
    • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
      More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.
    • 2012 March 1, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:
      Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.
    • 2012 March 1, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:
      Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.
    • 2019, Con Man Games; SmashGames, quoting Margaret, Kindergarten 2, SmashGames:
      Ah...my sister wishes to see you. A mere child. She never wants to have lunch with her dear sister, but I guess that's not your problem.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]

Etymology 5[edit]

Borrowed from Maori mere (“more”).

Noun[edit]

mere (plural meres)

  1. A Maori war-club.
    • 2000, Errol Fuller, Extinct Birds, Oxford 2000, p. 41:
      As Owen prepared to dismiss the matter, Rule produced something that really caught the great man's eye – a greenstone mere, the warclub of the Maori.

Anagrams[edit]

Afrikaans[edit]

Noun[edit]

mere

  1. plural of meer

Danish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse meiri (“more”), from Proto-Germanic *maizô.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /meːrə/, [ˈmeːɐ]

Adjective[edit]

mere

  1. more; to a higher degree
    Han er mere højtidelig end jeg er.
    He is more solemn than I am.
  2. more; in greater quantity
    I har mere plads end jeg har.
    You have more space than I do.

Usage notes[edit]

"Mere", in the second sense, is only used with uncountable nouns. For countable nouns, use flere.

Estonian[edit]

Noun[edit]

mere

  1. genitive singular of meri

Italian[edit]

Adjective[edit]

mere f

  1. feminine plural of mero

Anagrams[edit]

Latin[edit]

Verb[edit]

merē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

References[edit]

  • mere in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879
  • mere in Gaffiot, Félix, Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette, 1934

Middle Dutch[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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

Adjective[edit]

mêre

  2. greater, larger
    Antonym: minre
  3. older
    Antonym: minre
Inflection[edit]

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Determiner[edit]

mêre

  1. more
    Antonym: minre

Descendants[edit]

  • Dutch: meer

Adverb[edit]

mêre

  1. Alternative form of mêe

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old Dutch meri, from Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri.

Noun[edit]

mēre f or n

  2. lake (fresh water)
  3. sea (salt water)
Inflection[edit]

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • “mere (I)”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek‎[3], 2000
  • “mere (III)”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek‎[4], 2000
  • Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J., “mere (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek‎[5], The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1885–1929, →ISBN, page I
  • Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J., “mere (VIII)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek‎[6], The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1885–1929, →ISBN, page VIII

Middle French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old French mere medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.

Noun[edit]

mere f (plural meres)

  1. mother (female family member)
Descendants[edit]

Old English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri (“sea”). Cognate with Old Frisian mere (West Frisian mar), Old Saxon meri (Low German Meer), 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 (more) (Russian мо́ре (móre)), Lithuanian mãre.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

mere m

  1. lake
  2. pool
  3. (poetic or in compounds) sea

Declension[edit]

Declension of mere (strong i-stem)
Case Singular Plural
nominative mere meras
accusative mere meras
genitive meres mera
dative mere merum

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

See also[edit]

Old French[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From earlier medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.

Noun[edit]

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

  1. mother (female family member)
Descendants[edit]

Romanian[edit]

Noun[edit]

mere n pl

  1. plural of măr

Serbo-Croatian[edit]

Verb[edit]

mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)

  1. third-person plural present of meriti
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