mere

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

mere

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

(body of water; limit; famous; just, only):

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mɪə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mɪɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (General South African) IPA^(key): /mjøː/
• (Wales, other regions) IPA^(key): /mjɜː/
• Homophone: mirror (some accents)
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ) (in some varieties of English)

(Maori war-club):

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɹi/, /ˈmɛɹɛ/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹi, -ɛɹɛ

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English mere, mer, from Anglo-Norman meer, from Old French mier, from Latin merus (“pure, unmixed, undiluted”), from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to sparkle, gleam”).

Cognate with Old English āmerian, āmyrian (“to purify, examine, revise”). The Middle English word was perhaps influenced by or conflated with sound-alike Middle English mere (“glorious, noble, splendid, fine, pure”), from Old English mǣre (“famous, great, excellent, sublime, splendid, pure, sterling”), from Proto-West Germanic *mārī, from Proto-Germanic *mērijaz.

Adjective

mere (comparative merer, superlative merest)

1. Just, only; no more than, pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.

   The mere thought of pineapple on pizza makes me want to throw up.

   • 1733, I[saac] W[atts], “Essay I. A Fair Enquiry and Debate Concerning Space. Sect XII. Space Nothing Real, but a Meer Abstract Idea.”, in Philosophical Essays on Various Subjects, , London: Richard Ford , and Richard Hett , →OCLC, page 44:

     And ſo vve may have an ever-grovving Idea of infinite Number as vvell as infinite Space or Emptineſs, yet it is a meer Idea, and hath no real Exiſtence vvithout us.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., , , →OCLC:

     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, 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.

2. (obsolete) Pure, unalloyed .
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     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 Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:

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

3. (obsolete) Nothing less than; complete, downright .
   • 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, 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, chapter 35, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , volume I, London: Harrison and Co., , →OCLC:

     This freedom of expostulation exalted his mother's ire to meer frenzy […] .

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

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

• meer, meere, mear, meare

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. Boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     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

• Hertsmere
• merestead
• merestake
• merestone
• meretree

Verb

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, David EM Andrews, “Merely a question of boundaries.”, in Sheetlines‎, The Charles Close Society, →ISSN:

     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

• mereing

Etymology 3

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

• meer, meere, mear

Noun

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:

     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. , new edition, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VIII), London: F Wingrave, successor to Mr. Nourse, , →OCLC:

     The meres of Shropshire and Cheshire.

   • 1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. , volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC:

     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:

     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, published 2005, page 194:

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

Derived terms

Etymology 4

See mayor.

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of mayor and mair.

Etymology 5

Borrowed from Maori mere (“more”).

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. A Maori war-club.
   • 2000, Errol Fuller, Extinct Birds, Oxford, page 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

• Emer., REME, erme, meer, reem

Afrikaans

Noun

mere

1. plural of meer

Danish

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /meːrə/,

Adjective

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

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

Adverb

mere

1. more

Estonian

Noun

mere

1. genitive singular of meri

Italian

Adjective

mere f

1. feminine plural of mero

Anagrams

• erme

Latin

Adverb

merē (not comparable)

1. purely, without admixture.
2. merely, no more or less than

Verb

merē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

References

• “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.
• Dictionary of Medieval Latin in British Sources
• Karl Ernst Georges, Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (1913/1918; reprinted Darmstadt 1998), vol. 2, column 888 <http://www.zeno.org/nid/20002495945>.

Middle Dutch

Etymology 1

From Old Dutch mēro, from Proto-West Germanic *maiʀō.

Adjective

mêre

2. greater, larger

   Antonym: minre

3. older

   Antonym: minre

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Determiner

mêre

1. more

   Antonym: minre

Descendants

• Dutch: meer

Adverb

mêre

1. Alternative form of mêe

Etymology 2

From Old Dutch meri, from Proto-West Germanic *mari.

Noun

mēre f or n

2. lake (fresh water)
3. sea (salt water)

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: meer
  • Afrikaans: meer
• Limburgish: maer

Further reading

• “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 English

Etymology 1

From Old English mǣre, ġemǣre (“boundary; limit”), from Proto-Germanic *mairiją (“boundary”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to fence”).

Alternative forms

• mer, merre, mare, mær

Noun

mere (plural meres)

1. boundary, border

Descendants

• English: mere
• Yola: pulmere

References

• “mēre, n.³”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

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

• mer, mære, mare, meare

Adjective

mere

1. (of God or Saints) glorious, renowned.
2. (of persons) illustrious, noble, great.
3. beautiful, fair.
4. splendid, fine, good.

Middle French

Etymology

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

Noun

mere f (plural meres)

1. mother (female family member)

Descendants

• French: mère
  • Haitian Creole: mè

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *mari (“sea, lake”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈme.re/

Noun

mere m

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

Declension

Derived terms

• meregrot
• merehūs (“Noah's ark”, literally “sea-house”)
• mereswīn
• ȳþmere

Descendants

• Middle English: mere
  • English: mere
  • Scots: mere

See also

• ēa (“river”)
• gārseċġ (“ocean”)
• sǣ (“sea”)
• strēam (“stream”)

Old French

Alternative forms

• medre

Etymology

From earlier medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.

Noun

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

1. mother (female family member)

Descendants

• Bourguignon: meire
• Middle French: mere
  • French: mère
    • Haitian Creole: mè
• Norman: mère, méthe
• Walloon: mere

Romanian

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

mere n pl

1. plural of măr

Sardinian

Alternative forms

• meri (Campidanese)

Etymology

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈmere/

Noun

mere m (plural meres)

1. (Logudorese) owner, master

References

• Wagner, Max Leopold (1960–1964) “mère”, in Dizionario etimologico sardo, Heidelberg

Serbo-Croatian

Verb

mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)

1. third-person plural present of meriti