# mere

Pronunciation: say "MEER" US /mɪɚ/, UK /mɪə̯/

## Adjective

1. No more than what is stated; only that and nothing greater, often stressing how small or unimportant the thing is.
   - Simple: Only what is named and nothing more, often used to make something seem small or unimportant.
   - _The repair took a mere ten minutes._
   - _She won the election by a mere two votes._

## Noun

2. A body of still water such as a lake or pond, especially a broad, shallow one. *(dialectal, UK)*
   - Simple: A lake or pond, especially one that is wide and not very deep.
   - _Mist drifted across the mere as the sun rose._
   - _The village sat beside a wide, reedy mere._
5. A short, flat-bladed hand weapon of the Maori of New Zealand, often carved from greenstone and used in close combat. (pronounced: say "ME-ree" /ˈmɛɹi/)
   - Simple: A short, flat fighting club used by the Maori people of New Zealand.
   - _He gripped the mere and struck at his opponent's temple._
   - _The chief's mere had been passed down for generations._

## Adjective

3. Pure and unmixed, and so complete or absolute; sheer. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Pure, with nothing else mixed in, and so total or complete.

## Noun

4. A boundary or limit; a marker or line that shows where one property or region ends and the next begins. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A line or stone that shows where one piece of land ends and another starts.

## Other meanings

- (verb) In mapmaking and surveying, to fix the exact position of a boundary and record it on a map.
- (noun) Alternative form of mayor and mair: the head of a town's government, or one of several royal officials in old Scotland.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3** — From Middle English "mere," borrowed through Anglo-Norman and Old French from Latin "merus" ("pure, unmixed, undiluted"), which is traditionally traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to sparkle, gleam." The Middle English word was perhaps influenced by a sound-alike word from Old English "mǣre" meaning "famous, great, splendid, pure."
**Meaning 4** — Old English "mǣre" or "ġemǣre" ("boundary, limit") became Middle English "mere". It goes back to Proto-Germanic "*mairiją" and to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to fence". Dutch "meer" ("a limit, boundary") and Swedish "landamäre" ("border") are related.
**Meaning 2** — From Middle English "mere," from Old English "mere" ("lake, pool," and in poetry "sea"), from Proto-Germanic "*mari." It is related to Dutch "meer" ("lake") and German "Meer" ("sea"), as well as Latin "mare" and Russian "мо́ре" (móre).
**Meaning 5** — Borrowed from the Maori word "mere."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/mere (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).