Wiktionary

mere

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

English

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Pronunciation

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

Etymology 1

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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

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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.]
    Synonyms: alone, bare, simple, only, very
    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; […].
    • 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything: Black Swan, page 23:
      ...And ocean salinity, of course, represented only the merest sliver of my ignorance. I didn't know what a proton was, didn't know a quark from a quasar, didn't know how geologists could look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was, didn't know anything, really. I became gripped by a quiet, unwonted but insistent urge to know a little more about these matters and to understand above all how people figured them out.
    • 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
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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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

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Noun

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mere (plural meres)

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

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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?
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Etymology 3

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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, 'lake', Dutch meer, 'lake', Low German Meer, and German Meer, 'sea'. Non-Germanic cognates include Latin mare, Breton mor, and Russian мо́ре (móre). Doublet of mar and mare.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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mere (plural meres)

  1. (dialectal or literary) A body of standing water, such as a lake or a pond (formerly even a body of seawater), especially a broad, shallow one. (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, volume (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. […], 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
    • 1897, Transactions of the Manchester Geological and Mining Society, page 500:
      […] the salt field which extends from those old salt meres at Barton, a little south of Birkdale, and on to Preesall, near Fleetwood.
    • 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
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Derived terms

Etymology 4

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See mayor.

Noun

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mere (plural meres)

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

Etymology 5

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Borrowed from Maori mere (“more”).

Noun

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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

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Afrikaans

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Noun

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mere

  1. plural of meer

Danish

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /meːrə/, [ˈmeːɐ]

Adjective

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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

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

Adverb

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mere

  1. more

Estonian

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Noun

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mere

  1. genitive singular of meri

Italian

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Adjective

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mere f

  1. feminine plural of mero

Anagrams

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Latin

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Adverb

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merē (not comparable)

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

Verb

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merē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of mereō

References

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  • “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

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Etymology 1

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

Adjective

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mêre

  2. greater, larger
    Antonym: minre
  3. older
    Antonym: minre
Inflection
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This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Determiner

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mêre

  1. more
    Antonym: minre
Descendants
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  • Dutch: meer

Adverb

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mêre

  1. Alternative form of mêe

Etymology 2

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

Noun

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mēre f or n

  2. lake (fresh water)
  3. sea (salt water)
Inflection
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This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants
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Further reading

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Middle English

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Etymology 1

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

Alternative forms

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Noun

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mere (plural meres)

  1. boundary, border
Descendants
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References
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Etymology 2

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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

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Adjective

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mere

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

Middle French

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Etymology

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

Noun

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mere f (plural meres)

  1. mother (female family member)

Descendants

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Old English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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.

Noun

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mere m

  1. lake
  2. pool
  3. (poetic or in compounds) sea
Declension
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Strong i-stem:

singular plural
nominative mere meras
accusative mere meras
genitive meres mera
dative mere merum
Derived terms
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Descendants
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See also
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Etymology 2

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Noun

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mere f

  1. a mare (female horse)
Declension
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Weak:

singular plural
nominative mere meran
accusative meran meran
genitive meran merena
dative meran merum
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Old French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From earlier medre, from Latin māter, mātrem.

Noun

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

  1. mother (female family member)

Descendants

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Polish

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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mere (not comparable)

  1. (Eastern Kraków) Synonym of całkiem
  2. (Eastern Kraków) Synonym of podobnie

Further reading

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  • Błażej Pawłowicz (1892) “mere”, in “Wyrazy gwarowe z okolic Tarnowa”, in Prace Filologiczne (in Polish), volume 4, z. 1, Warsaw: skł. gł. w Księgarni E. Wende i Ska, page 307

Romanian

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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mere n pl

  1. plural of măr

Sardinian

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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mere m (plural meres)

  1. (Logudorese) owner, master

References

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

Serbo-Croatian

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Verb

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mere (Cyrillic spelling мере)

  1. third-person plural present of meriti
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