mere
noun
- Maori tear-shaped broad-bladed weapon used in ceremonial dance or combat
adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L9568 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /mɪə̯/ / /mɪː/ / /mɪjə/
adj
Etymology: 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.
- 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.”
“The mere suggestion that the queen’s brother tried to kill your boy would be considered treason.”
- Pure, unalloyed .
“So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion[…].”
“Meere [translating pure] ignorance, and wholy relying on others, was verily more profitable and wiser, than is this verball, and vaine knowledge[…].”
- Nothing less than; complete, downright .
“If every man might have what he would[…]we should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.”
“This freedom of expostulation exalted his mother's ire to meer frenzy […].”
name
Etymology: # For the places in England: from Old English mere (“lake, pond”). # For the place in Belgium: from Middle Dutch mēre, from Old Dutch meri (“lake, sea”).
- A village and civil parish in northern Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid ref SJ7381).
- A small town and civil parish with a town council in south-west Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref ST8132).
- A sub-municipality in East Flanders, Belgium.
noun
Etymology: Borrowed from Māori mere (“more”).
- A Maori war-club.
“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.”
verb
Etymology: 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”).
- To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
- To set divisions and bounds.
- To decide upon the position of a boundary; to position it on a map.
“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?”