Wiktionary

mere

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

EnglishEdit

 
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PronunciationEdit

(body of water; limit; famous; just, only):
(Maori war-club):
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Etymology 1Edit

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.

AdjectiveEdit

mere (comparative merer, superlative merest)

  1. Just, only; no more than, pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected. [from 16th c.]
    • 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., […], [1933], →OCLC, 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.
  2. (obsolete) Pure, unalloyed [8th–17th c.].
  3. (obsolete) Nothing less than; complete, downright [15th–18th c.].
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit

Etymology 2Edit

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 formsEdit

NounEdit

mere (plural meres)

  1. Boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line.
Derived termsEdit

VerbEdit

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[1], 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 termsEdit

Etymology 3Edit

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 formsEdit

NounEdit

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[2]:
      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:
      The meres of Shropshire and Cheshire.
    • 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:
      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 2005, p. 194:
      Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.
Derived termsEdit
Derived terms

Etymology 4Edit

See mayor.

NounEdit

mere (plural meres)

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

Etymology 5Edit

Borrowed from Maori mere (“more”).

NounEdit

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.

AnagramsEdit

AfrikaansEdit

NounEdit

mere

  1. plural of meer

DanishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /meːrə/, [ˈmeːɐ]

AdjectiveEdit

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 notesEdit

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

AdverbEdit

mere

  1. more

EstonianEdit

NounEdit

mere

  1. genitive singular of meri

ItalianEdit

AdjectiveEdit

mere f

  1. feminine plural of mero

AnagramsEdit

LatinEdit

AdverbEdit

merē (not comparable)

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

VerbEdit

merē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

ReferencesEdit

  • “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 DutchEdit

Etymology 1Edit

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

AdjectiveEdit

mêre

  2. greater, larger
    Antonym: minre
  3. older
    Antonym: minre
InflectionEdit

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

DeterminerEdit

mêre

  1. more
    Antonym: minre
DescendantsEdit
  • Dutch: meer

AdverbEdit

mêre

  1. Alternative form of mêe

Etymology 2Edit

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

NounEdit

mēre f or n

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

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

DescendantsEdit

Further readingEdit

Middle EnglishEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

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”).

AdjectiveEdit

mere

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

Middle FrenchEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

NounEdit

mere f (plural meres)

  1. mother (female family member)

DescendantsEdit

Old EnglishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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

Cognates
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.

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

mere m

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

DeclensionEdit

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

Derived termsEdit

DescendantsEdit

See alsoEdit

Old FrenchEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

From earlier medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.

NounEdit

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

  1. mother (female family member)

DescendantsEdit

RomanianEdit

NounEdit

mere n pl

  1. plural of măr

SardinianEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

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”).

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

mere m (plural meres)

  1. (Logudorese) owner, master

ReferencesEdit

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

Serbo-CroatianEdit

VerbEdit

mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)

  1. third-person plural present of meriti
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