Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A fitting recompense.
- n. Archaic A merited gift or wage.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That which is bestowed or rendered in consideration of desert, good or bad (but usually the former); reward; recompense; award.
- n. A gift; also, a bribe.
- n. Merit or desert.
- To reward; bribe.
- To deserve or merit.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To reward; bribe.
- v. transitive To deserve; merit.
- n. now literary, archaic A payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward, deserts; award.
- n. A gift; bribe.
- n. obsolete Merit or desert; worth.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That which is bestowed or rendered in consideration of merit; reward; recompense.
- n. Merit or desert; worth.
- n. obsolete A gift; also, a bride.
- v. obsolete To reward; to repay.
- v. obsolete To deserve; to merit.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a fitting reward
Etymologies
- From Middle English meede, mede, from Old English mēd, meord, meard, meorþ ("meed, reward, pay, price, compensation, bribe"), from Proto-Germanic *mēzdō, *mizdō (“meed”), from Proto-Indo-European *mizdʰ- (“to pay”). Cognate with obsolete Dutch miede ("wages"), Low German mede ("payment, wages, reward"), German Miete ("rent"), Gothic (mizdo, "meed, reward, payment, recompense"), Old Church Slavonic мьзда (mьzda, "reward"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English mede, from Old English mēd. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In the first place, honours and titles meed not be hereditary; in the second, they need not be conferred by the political administration; and, in the third, they are not only — as the French Legion of Honour shows — entirely compatible with, but they are a necessary complement to the”
“Do you really meed me to gather together all the various times centrist Dems have said that they view a vote for cloture as equivalent to a vote for the bill?”
“I feel like I meed all the help I can get. on 11 May 2009 at 9: 57 am Lindsey”
“March 27, 2010 at 2: 03 am its true we all meed to struggle so that we can make good money for this huh ….”
Persistence Pays – But Not Enough to Cover the Rent | Write to Done
“I have land, money, power, recognition from the world, a consciousness that I do my meed of good in serving others, a mate whom I love, children that are of my own fond flesh.”
“She was willing to go into the black grave and remain in its blackness forever, to go into the salt vats and let the young men cut her dead flesh to sausage-meat, if -- if only she could get her small meed of happiness first.”
“He could have endured poverty; and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable.”
“I assure you I can appreciate your side of it; and though, looking at it theoretically, it was the highest conduct, demanding the fullest meed of praise, still, in all frankness, there is much to -- to --”
“The group stated that if Fiji does not meed the deadline, the country would be suspended from all Forum events and cease receiving any new financial and technical assistance.”
Global Voices in English » Fiji faces suspension from Pacific Islands Forum
““Feezi meed!” he roared, throwing the meat down and grabbing his lance.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘meed’.
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Anglish
Words that can replace Latinates.
frosent, gainsay, fremd, inrush, frain, huru, wordbook, wordstock, byspel, elfshine, infaru, glam and 98 more...
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Wine & Spirits
Vintage, toast, vodka, wine, whisky, beer, port, cocktail, stout, champagne, brandy, rum and 2 more...
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Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 83 more...
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Words to Try to Use in Colloquial Spe...
surquedry, equivocate, putative, turgid, congeries, irrefragable, quiddity, zaftig, flagitious, bloviate, perfidy, compendious and 227 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Jane Eyre
abigail, sanguine, chancel, bourne, peremptorily, parley, unwonted, fagging, convolvuli, tarry, insuperable, execrations and 190 more...
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Baron Luke's Collection
An assortment of words, which, when used, should inject some vibrancy into your day, hopefully expunging any ennui!
expunge, cogitate, elucidate, post-haste, rebarbative, recalcitrant, smite, absquatulate, forlorn, thole, nefarious, insubordination and 124 more...
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Words featured in Mrs. Byrne's Dictio...
Selections from Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words by Josefa Heifetz Byrne (University Books, 1974). Definitions in the comments when not available elsewhere.
apanthropy, anoetic, aristology, ayne, bibliopole, bibliotaph, calecannon, caoine, catlap, chirospasm, clamjamfry, coadunate and 174 more...
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My Lovelies
mafficking, myrmidon, magniloquent, senescence, seraglio, anodyne, sundry, portmanteau, dearth, scion, frangible, noetic and 34 more...
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New Words '08
Those items I added to my vocabulary in 2008.
sternutation, telluric, faience, cynosure, gracile, meed, seriation, lithic, dendrochronology, cervine, riverine, amphitrite and 3 more...
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Words I learned whilst slogging throu...
Ivanhoe is a book by Sir Walter Scott. It was written in 1819, is set in 12th-century England, and is an example of historical fiction.
murrain, voluptuary, conventual, jennet, palfrey, mitre, obdurate, banderole, baldric, fetlock, panoply, obeisance and 48 more...
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gift smift
donation, lagniappe, endow, knack, bequest, giveaway, bestow, hogmanay, munificent, largesse, bonsella, beneficence and 54 more...
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On a Field, Sable, The Letter A, Gules
Words gleaned from my reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."
prolix, adown, besom, natal, eulogium, coadjutor, cumbrous, slumberous, inditing, anatto, impost, lucubrations and 50 more...
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Payola
Bribes and such.
payola, sop, kickback, soap, palm-grease, boodle, meed, dasturi, gratulance, golden grease, lubrication payment, payoff and 9 more...
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M
muliebrity, mulierose, marquetry, melioration, mendacious, metaphrase, mirabilia, mirabiliary, modish, monition, morigerate, mentation and 28 more...
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By Hook or By Crook
From the book by David Crystal
cleek, cleeky, slew, lay-by, daylights, blurb, frequentness, beedom, cob, sociable, calash, bracteate and 28 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for meed.
yarb "Alas, but why have I not pretended at least that I had read them, accepted some meed of retraction in the fact that they were sent?"
- Lowry, Under the Volcano Jun 24, 2011
utarcher "I bestow on thee this chaplet, Sir Knight, as the meed of valour assigned to this day's victor." Here she paused a moment, and then firmly added, "And upon brows more worthy could a wreath of chivalry never be placed!"
--Ivanhoe, Chapter XII, by Sir Walter Scott Jan 10, 2011
bilby
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser -Death is Life's high meed.
- John Keats, 'Why Did I Laugh Tonight?' Jul 29, 2009