mere
pronunciation
How to pronounce mere in British English:
UK [mɪə(r)]
How to pronounce mere in American English:
US [mɪr]
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- Noun:
- a small pond of standing water
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- Adjective:
- being nothing more than specified
- apart from anything else; without additions or modifications
Word Origin
- mere
- mere: see mermaid
- mere (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" (cognates: 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, as in a mere dream).
- mere (n.)
- Old English mere "sea, ocean; lake, pool, pond, cistern," from Proto-Germanic *mari (cognates: 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" (cognates: Latin mare, Old Church Slavonic morje, Russian more, Lithuanian mares, Old Irish muir, Welsh mor "sea," Gaulish Are-morici "people living near the sea").
Example
- 1. And their mere existence sends an important moral signal .
- 2. The malian army has a mere 7500 men .
- 3. Markets brightened on the mere possibility .
- 4. She got canned after a mere 9 months .
- 5. But how does mere matter like this make a mind ?