mere









mere


adjective, superlative mer·est.

  1. being nothing more nor better than: a mere pittance; He is still a mere child.
  2. Obsolete.
    1. pure and unmixed, as wine, a people, or a language.
    2. fully as much as what is specified; completely fulfilled or developed; absolute.

noun

  1. Chiefly British Dialect. a lake or pond.
  2. Obsolete. any body of sea water.

noun British Dialect.

  1. a boundary or boundary marker.

noun, plural mères [mer; English mairz] /mɛr; English mɛərz/. French.

  1. mother1.

  1. a combining form meaning “part,” used in the formation of compound words: blastomere.

adjective superlative merest

  1. being nothing more than something specifiedshe is a mere child

noun

  1. archaic, or dialect a lake or marsh
  2. obsolete the sea or an inlet of it

noun

  1. archaic a boundary or boundary marker

noun

  1. NZ a short flat striking weapon

n combining form

  1. indicating a part or divisionblastomere

adj.c.1400, “unmixed, pure,” from Old French mier “pure” (of gold), “entire, total, complete,” and directly from Latin merus “unmixed” (of wine), “pure; bare, naked;” figuratively “true, real, genuine,” probably originally “clear, bright,” from PIE *mer- “to gleam, glimmer, sparkle” (cf. Old English amerian “to purify,” Old Irish emer “not clear,” Sanskrit maricih “ray, beam,” Greek marmarein “to gleam, glimmer”). Original sense of “nothing less than, absolute” (mid-15c., now only in vestiges such as mere folly) existed for centuries alongside opposite sense of “nothing more than” (1580s, e.g. a mere dream). n.Old English mere “sea, ocean; lake, pool, pond, cistern,” from Proto-Germanic *mari (cf. Old Norse marr, Old Saxon meri “sea,” Middle Dutch maer, Dutch meer “lake, sea, pool,” Old High German mari, German Meer “sea,” Gothic marei “sea,” mari-saiws “lake”), from PIE *mori- “sea” (cf. Latin mare, Old Church Slavonic morje, Russian more, Lithuanian mares, Old Irish muir, Welsh mor “sea,” Gaulish Are-morici “people living near the sea”). suff.

  1. Part; segment:blastomere, polymer.

  1. A suffix meaning “part” or “segment,” as in blastomere, one of the cells that form a blastula.
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