mere

Forms

mere m (strong i-stem; genitive singular meres, nominative plural meras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *mari, from Proto-Germanic *mari (“lake, sea”).^[1][2] The Proto-Germanic noun survives in Old Norse marr (“sea”), Old High German meri (“sea, lake”), Old Frisian mar (“ditch”) and in the first part of Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍂𐌹𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍅𐍃 (marisaiws, “lake”).^[2][3] A feminine form beside it is continued by Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹 (marei, “sea”) and Old Saxon meri.^[2][3]

Kroonen takes it as the regular continuation of an Indo-European neuter i-stem Proto-Indo-European *mor-i- (“sea”), the source also of Latin mare (“sea”) and Old Irish muir (“sea”); Lithuanian mãrios (“lagoon, sea”) and Old Church Slavonic море (more, “sea”) are made from the same stem with other suffixes.^[2][1] Orel and Köbler give the same comparison.^[3][4] Kroonen also relates the word to Proto-Germanic *mōrą (“marsh, moor”), the source of mōr.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the oldest English glossary: the Épinal Glossary, written at the end of the seventh century or about 700, glosses Latin “stagnum” (standing water, a pool) with staeg uel meri, in an early spelling with final ⟨-i⟩.^[5][6][7] The Corpus Glossary of the early ninth century has the later form: Stagnum mere.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller give three senses: the sea, a natural lake or pool, and an artificial pool or cistern.^[9] The glosses and charters use it for standing water, a pond or a lake, and it is very common in the bounds of charters and in place-names.^[9][10][11] The sense “sea” belongs mostly to the poetry: the flood of Genesis, the Red Sea of Exodus and the sea crossed in Andreas.^[9] In Beowulf it names the haunted pool where Grendel and his mother live.^[12][9] In the Pastoral Care it is the great bronze basin of Solomon's temple, and a cistern from which one drinks one's own water.^[9][7]

It lived on as Middle English mere, now English mere “a lake, a pond”.^[1]

Timeline

• s. vii ex. or vii/viii – staeg uel meri for Latin “stagnum” in the Épinal Glossary.^[5][6][7]
• s. ix¹ – Stagnum mere in the Corpus Glossary.^[8][7]
• s. ix med. – in mere wetres for “in stagnum aquae” in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[13][7]
• 890×897 – the bronze basin of the temple, hira honda ðwean on ðæm mere “wash their hands in the basin”, in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[14][7]
• s. x¹ or x²/⁴ – a lake in the Baltic, of ðæm mere ðe Truso standeð in staðe “from the lake on whose shore Truso stands”, in the Old English Orosius.^[15][7]
• s. x/xi – Grendel's mere in the Beowulf manuscript.^[16][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (poetic) the sea.^[9][17]
2. a lake or natural pool, standing water.^[18][19][4]
3. an artificial pool, a cistern or basin.^[9][17]

Word family

• mereswīn
• meregrot
• merehūs
• meredēaþ
• hellemere
• ȳþmere
• fiscmere
• hranmere
• sundmere
• wīnmere

Descendants

• Middle English mere (→ English mere; Scots mere)^[1]

Related words

• mōr

Usage notes

The same spelling mere is also a separate word for a mare, the female horse, more often written miere or myre.^[9][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 354
3. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 261
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. mėre
5. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 610
6. ^ a b Pheifer, J. D. (1974), Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 139
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
8. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 76
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 679
10. ^ Middendorff, H. (1902), Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 92
11. ^ LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
12. ^ a b Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. mere
13. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 329
14. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
15. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 249
16. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 344
17. ^ a b Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 233
18. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 636
19. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 138