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mere

adj
/mɪə̯/UK/mɪɚ/US/miə/

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.

  1. derived from *mērijaz✻
  2. derived from *mārī✻
  3. derived from mǣre — “famous, great, excellent, sublime, splendid, pure, sterling”
  4. derived from mere — “glorious, noble, splendid, fine, pure”
  5. derived from *mer-✻ — “to sparkle, gleam”
  6. derived from merus — “pure, unmixed, undiluted”
  7. derived from mier
  8. derived from meer
  9. inherited from mere

Definitions

  1. Just, only

    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.
    • 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.

  2. 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[…].

  3. Nothing less than

    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 […].
  4. ›+ 10 more definitions

    1. Boundary, limit

      Boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line.

      • The Troian Brute did first that Citie found, / And Hygate made the meare thereof by West, / And Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.

    2. To limit

      To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.

    3. To set divisions and bounds.

    4. To decide upon the position of a boundary

      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?

    5. A body of standing water, such as a lake or a pond (formerly even a body of seawater),…

      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.)

      • When making for the Brooke, the Falkoner doth espie On River, Plash, or Mere, where store of Fowle doth lye:
      • The meres of Shropshire and Cheshire.
      • As a tempest influences the sluggish waters of the deadest mere.

    6. Alternative form of mayor and mair.

    7. 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.

    8. A village and civil parish in northern Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid…

      A village and civil parish in northern Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid ref SJ7381).

    9. A small town and civil parish with a town council in south-west Wiltshire, England (OS…

      A small town and civil parish with a town council in south-west Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref ST8132).

    10. A sub-municipality in East Flanders, Belgium.

The neighborhood

Derived

mere exposure effect, merely, mere mortal, Branston and Mere

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at mere. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01mere02better03seen04understood05speaker06speakerphone07hands-free08phone09call10voice

A definitional loop anchored at mere. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at mere

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA