mère

[mer; English mair] /mɛr; English mɛər/
noun, plural mères
[mer; English mairz] /mɛr; English mɛərz/ (Show IPA). French.
1.
mother.
Can be confused
mere, mère, mirror.
Examples from the web for mère
  • Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days.
  • Byrnes bolted out the front door of the clubhouse riding his beach cruiser bicycle mere minutes after the game ended.
  • The disparity goes beyond mere headcounts.
  • As of yesterday the trekkers were a mere 13 miles (21 kilometers) shy of their goal.
  • As a second-generation general manager of a legendary comics shop, that's not mere hyperbole.
  • This seemingly naive affirmation is no mere rhetorical device.
  • Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest.
  • No longer is the fruit a mere ingredient in fattening desserts.
  • It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life.
  • Coral Sea begins mere steps from 40 stylish open-air rooms.
British Dictionary definitions for mère

mere1

/mɪə/
adjective (superlative) merest
1.
being nothing more than something specified: she is a mere child
Word Origin
C15: from Latin merus pure, unmixed

mere2

/mɪə/
noun
1.
(archaic or dialect) a lake or marsh
2.
(obsolete) the sea or an inlet of it
Word Origin
Old English mere sea, lake; related to Old Saxon meri sea, Old Norse marr, Old High German mari; compare Latin mare

mere3

/mɪə/
noun
1.
(archaic) a boundary or boundary marker
Word Origin
Old English gemǣre

mere4

/ˈmɛrɪ/
noun
1.
(NZ) a short flat striking weapon
Word Origin
Māori
Word Origin and History for mère

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" (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").