mere
English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (body of water; limit; famous; just, only):
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /mɪə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /mɪɚ/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Etymology 1[edit]
From Middle English mere, from Old English mere (“lake, pool,” in compounds and poetry “sea”), from Proto-West Germanic *mari (“sea”), from Proto-Germanic *mari, from Proto-Indo-European *móri. Cognate with West Frisian mar, Dutch meer, Low German Meer, and German Meer. Non-Germanic cognates include Latin mare, Breton mor, and Russian мо́ре (móre). Doublet of mar and mare.
Alternative forms[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere (plural meres)
- (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 to 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.
- 1622, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 20 p. 16[1]:
Derived terms[edit]
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)
- 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.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.ix:
Derived terms[edit]
Verb[edit]
mere (third-person singular simple present meres, present participle mering, simple past and past participle mered)
- (transitive, obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
- (intransitive, obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.
- (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”), from Proto-West Germanic *mārī, 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)
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)
- (obsolete) Pure, unalloyed [8th-17thc.].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.8:
- So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion […].
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 56, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- Meere [transl. pure] ignorance, and wholy relying on others, was verily more profitable and wiser, than is this verball, and vaine knowledge […].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.8:
- (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 […] .
- 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.
- 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]
See mayor.
Noun[edit]
mere (plural meres)
Etymology 6[edit]
Borrowed from Maori mere (“more”).
Noun[edit]
mere (plural meres)
- 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.
- 2000, Errol Fuller, Extinct Birds, Oxford 2000, p. 41:
Anagrams[edit]
Afrikaans[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere
Danish[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old Norse meiri (“more”), from Proto-Germanic *maizô.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
mere
- more; to a higher degree
- Han er mere højtidelig end jeg er.
- He is more solemn than I am.
- Han er mere højtidelig end jeg er.
- more; in greater quantity
- I har mere plads end jeg har.
- You have more space than I do.
- I har mere plads end jeg har.
Usage notes[edit]
"Mere", in the second sense, is only used with uncountable nouns. For countable nouns, use flere.
Estonian[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere
Italian[edit]
Adjective[edit]
mere f
Anagrams[edit]
Latin[edit]
Verb[edit]
merē
References[edit]
- mere in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- mere in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
Middle Dutch[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
From Old Dutch mēro, from Proto-West Germanic *maiʀō.
Adjective[edit]
mêre
Inflection[edit]
This adjective needs an inflection-table template.
Determiner[edit]
mêre
Descendants[edit]
- Dutch: meer
Adverb[edit]
mêre
- Alternative form of mêe
Etymology 2[edit]
From Old Dutch meri, from Proto-West Germanic *mari.
Noun[edit]
mēre f or n
Inflection[edit]
This noun needs an inflection-table template.
Descendants[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- “mere (I)”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
- “mere (III)”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
- Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929), “mere (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I
- Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929), “mere (VIII)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page VIII
Middle French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old French mere medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.
Noun[edit]
mere f (plural meres)
- mother (female family member)
Descendants[edit]
Old English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-West Germanic *mari (“sea, lake”)
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere m
Declension[edit]
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)
- mother (female family member)
Descendants[edit]
Romanian[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere n pl
Sardinian[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- meri (Campidanese)
Etymology[edit]
From the nominative of Latin maior (“greater, elder”), via intermediate forms like *maire, *meire. For final /-or/ > /-re/, cf. Sardinian sorre, from Latin soror (“sister”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
mere m (plural meres)
References[edit]
- Wagner, Max Leopold (1960–1964), “mère”, in Dizionario etimologico sardo, Heidelberg
Serbo-Croatian[edit]
Verb[edit]
mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)
- English 1-syllable words
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- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɪə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɪə(ɹ)/1 syllable
- Rhymes:English/ɛɹi
- Rhymes:English/ɛɹi/2 syllables
- Rhymes:English/ɛɹɛ
- Rhymes:English/ɛɹɛ/2 syllables
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *mer- (sea)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
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- frm:Family
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