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):
  • (file)
  • (file)

Etymology 1 edit

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 edit

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.]
    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[ion] 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., [], [1933], →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 [8th–17th c.].
  3. (obsolete) Nothing less than; complete, downright [15th–18th c.].
Derived terms edit
Translations 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)

  1. Boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line.
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, 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 terms edit

Etymology 3 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)

  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[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] 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 edit

Etymology 4 edit

See mayor.

Noun edit

mere (plural meres)

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

Etymology 5 edit

Borrowed from Maori mere (more).

Noun edit

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 edit

Afrikaans edit

Noun edit

mere

  1. plural of meer

Danish edit

Etymology edit

From Old Danish mere, 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.

Adverb edit

mere

  1. more

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

Adverb edit

merē (not comparable)

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

Verb edit

merē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

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
  • 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 edit

Etymology 1 edit

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

Adjective edit

mêre

  1. greater, larger
    Antonym: minre
  2. 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-West Germanic *mari.

Noun edit

mēre f or n

  1. lake (fresh water)
  2. sea (salt water)
Inflection edit

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants edit

Further reading edit

Middle English edit

Etymology 1 edit

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

Alternative forms edit

Noun edit

mere (plural meres)

  1. boundary, border
Descendants edit
References edit

Etymology 2 edit

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

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

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-West Germanic *mari (sea, lake).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

mere m

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

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

  1. mother (female family member)

Descendants edit

Romanian edit

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

mere n pl

  1. plural of măr

Sardinian edit

Alternative forms edit

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)

  1. (Logudorese) owner, master

References edit

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

Serbo-Croatian edit

Verb edit

mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)

  1. third-person plural present of meriti