mire

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪə/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪɚ/, /ˈmaɪɹ/
• Rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

English Wikipedia has an article on:

mire

Wikipedia

From Middle English mire, a borrowing from Old Norse mýrr, from Proto-Germanic *miuzijō, whence also Swedish myr, Norwegian myr, Icelandic mýri, Dutch *mier (in placenames, for example Mierlo). Related to Proto-Germanic *meusą, whence Old English mēos, and Proto-Germanic *musą, whence Old English mos (English moss).

Noun

mire (countable and uncountable, plural mires)

1. Deep mud; moist, spongy earth.

   Synonyms: peatland, quag

   Hypernym: wetland

   Hyponyms: bog, fen

   • (Can we date this quote?), (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     When Caliban was lazy and neglected his work, Ariel (who was invisible to all eyes but Prospero’s) would come slyly and pinch him, and sometimes tumble him down in the mire. (Charles Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare, Hatier, coll. « Les Classiques pour tous » n° 223, p. 51)

2. An undesirable situation, a predicament.
   • 2017 April 2, Dafydd Pritchard, “Swansea City 0-0 Middlesbrough”, in BBC Sport‎, London:

     Swansea seemed to be pulling clear of trouble with five wins in their first eight games following head coach Paul Clement's appointment, but two successive defeats had dragged the Swans back into the mire.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

mire (third-person singular simple present mires, present participle miring, simple past and past participle mired)

1. (transitive) To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.

   Synonyms: bemire, enmire

   to mire a horse or wagon

2. (intransitive) To sink into mud.
3. (transitive, figurative) To weigh down.
4. (intransitive) To soil with mud or foul matter.

   Synonym: bemire

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Why had I not with charitable hand
     Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,
     Who smirch’d thus and mired with infamy,
     I might have said ‘No part of it is mine;
     This shame derives itself from unknown loins’?

Derived terms

• unmired

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English mire, from Old English *mȳre, *mīere, from Proto-West Germanic *miurijā, from Proto-Germanic *miurijǭ (“ant”). Cognate to Old Norse maurr, Danish myre, Middle Dutch miere (“ant”) (Dutch mier). All probably from Proto-Indo-European *morwi- (“ant”), whence also cognate to Latin formīca.

Noun

mire (plural mires)

1. (rare or obsolete) An ant.
   • 1866, The Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser Devoted, page 149:

     "Having been seriously interrupted by small brown ants or mires working in my cutting bench, digging holes down the side of my cuttings, thereby arresting the process of rooting. […] "

   • 1915, Daniel T. Trombley, Batiste of Isle La Motte, page 24:

     Wen I lay down behine dat log I plunk masef right een one dem aunty mire nest an bout 10 million of dem leetle devil begin to heat me.

   • 1939, original c. 1300, Publications - Volume 103; Volume 105, page 267:

     The ant figures in the Bestiary, which tells us that the 'mire' is mighty; toils much in summer and in soft weather; stores wood and seed, corn and grass; in winter she is not harmed: she likes wheat, but shuns barley […]

Related terms

Anagrams

• IMer, Meir, Meri, Remi, emir, meri, reim, riem, rime

Asturian

Verb

mire

1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive of mirar

Esperanto

Etymology

From miri +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Rhymes: -ire
• Hyphenation: mi‧re

Adverb

mire

1. in surprise, in awe, in an amazed way

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: mir, myrrhe, mirent

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Italian mira, from Latin mīrō (“to wonder at”).

Noun

mire f (plural mires)

1. (archaic) aim (action of aiming)

   Synonym: visée

2. foresight (of rifle)

   Synonym: guidon

3. (literal, figurative) target

   Synonyms: but, cible

4. (television) test pattern
5. (surveying) rod (measuring tool)

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Inherited from Old French mire, mirie, a semi-learned borrowing from Latin medicus.

Noun

mire m (plural mires, feminine miresse)

2. (historical) medieval physician

   Hypernym: (more generally) médecin (“doctor”)

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

mire

1. inflection of mirer:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “mire”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Anagrams

• émir, Remi, Rémi, rime, rimé

Galician

Verb

mire

1. inflection of mirar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Hungarian

Etymology

mi (“what?”) +‎ -re (sublative case suffix)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mi‧re
• Rhymes: -rɛ

Pronoun

mire

1. sublative singular of mi

   Mire gondolsz? ― What are you thinking about?

Pronoun

mire

1. for what (purpose)?

   Mire jó ez? ― What is it for?

Adverb

mire (not comparable)

1. whereupon (after which, in consequence)

   Megszidtam, mire sírva fakadt. ― I scolded her, whereupon she started to cry.

2. by the time, when

   Mire hazaértem, a vendégek már elmentek. ― By the time I got home, the guests had left.

Related terms

Further reading

• mire in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’, abbr.: ÉrtSz.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN

Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmʲɪɾʲə/

Etymology 1

From Old Irish mire (“madness, frenzy, infatuation”).

Noun

mire f (genitive singular mire)

1. quickness, rapidity
2. spiritedness, ardor
3. madness, frenzy, mania

   Synonym: buile

Declension

Derived terms

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Adjective

mire

1. inflection of mear:
   1. genitive feminine singular
   2. comparative degree

Mutation

References

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “mire”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “mire”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Entries containing “mire” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.
• Entries containing “mire” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Italian

Noun

mire f

1. plural of mira

Anagrams

• ermi, meri, remi, rime

Ladin

Verb

mire

1. inflection of mirer:
   1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. third-person singular/plural present subjunctive

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈmiː.re/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmi.re/,

Participle

mīre

1. vocative masculine singular of mīrus

References

• “mire”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “mire”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Middle English

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Old Norse mýrr, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *miuzijō.

Alternative forms

• myre, myer, muire, myrre, muyre

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miːr/
• (SW England) IPA^(key): /myːr/

Noun

mire (plural mires)

2. Marshy or swampy land; a mire or peat.
3. A region of marshy or swampy land.
4. A muddy or dirt-covered region.
5. (figuratively) Iniquity, sinfulness; immoral behaviour.
6. (rare) A quagmire or conundrum.
7. (rare) A puddle or pond; a watery hollow.

Derived terms

• myren

Descendants

• English: mire (“swamp”)
• Scots: mire

References

• “mīre, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-20.

Etymology 2

Inherited from Old English *mȳre, *mīere, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *miurijǭ.

Alternative forms

• myre

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmiːr(ə)/

Noun

mire

2. ant

Derived terms

• pissemyre

Descendants

• English: mire (“ant”) (obsolete)

References

• “mīre, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-20.

Portuguese

Verb

mire

1. inflection of mirar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Prasuni

Etymology

From Proto-Nuristani *murdikā́, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *mŕ̥diH (“clay, earth, soil”), from *mŕ̥ts, from Proto-Indo-European *meld-. Cognate with Ashkun míč, Kamkata-viri muří, mřëí, Waigali muk, English mold (“ground, earth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miɾe/

Noun

mire

1. clay

Romanian

Etymology

Possibly a substratum word, or from Greek μύρον (mýron, “ointment, uncture, holy oil”), relating to the ceremony of the Orthodox wedding. Another theory suggests Latin mīles (“soldier”), possibly mirroring semantic evolution of the rare voină (“husband”), from Slavic воинъ (voinŭ, “warrior”). Other less likely etymologies proposed include Turkish amir (“chief”), Cuman mir ("prince"), a Vulgar Latin *mīrex, from Ancient Greek μεῖραξ (meîrax, “adolescent; boy”), or an old Indo-European term.

Possibly related to Albanian mirë (“good”). Replaced mărit, which only survived in some regional dialects.

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

mire m (plural miri, feminine equivalent mireasă)

1. bridegroom

Declension

Derived terms

• mireasă

See also

• mir
• soț

References

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish mire (“madness, frenzy, infatuation”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mʲiɾʲə/

Noun

mire f (genitive singular mire, plural mirean)

1. merriment, mirth, frolic

Derived terms

• gille-mirein

Mutation

References

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “mire”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎, 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “mire”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Serbo-Croatian

Verb

mire (Cyrillic spelling мире)

1. third-person plural present of miriti

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmiɾe/
• Rhymes: -iɾe
• Syllabification: mi‧re

Verb

mire

1. inflection of mirar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative