Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To distribute by or as if by measure; allot: mete out justice.
- v. Archaic To measure.
- n. A boundary line; a limit.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To ascertain the quantity, dimensions, extent, or capacity of, by comparison with a standard; measure.
- To distribute or apportion by measure; measure or deal (out); dole.
- To be a measure of; serve for determining or expressing the extent, quantity, or capacity of.
- To take measure or line; aim.
- n. Measure.
- n. Computation; estimate; measure.
- n. Limitation; limit: in the phrase metes and bounds (rarely in the singular mete and bound).
- To dream: often used impersonally: as, me mette, I dreamed.
- Hence To lose the use of one's senses; be out of one's mind.
- To dream.
- To paint.
- An obsolete form of meet.
- An obsolete form of meet.
- n. An abbreviation of Metallurgical Engineer.
Wiktionary
- n. A boundary or other limit; a boundary-marker; mere.
- v. transitive, archaic, poetic, dialectal To measure.
- v. transitive, usually with “out” To dispense, measure (out), allot (especially punishment, reward etc.).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Meat.
- v. obsolete To meet.
- v. obsolete To dream; also impersonally.
- v. To find the quantity, dimensions, or capacity of, by any rule or standard; to measure.
- v. obsolete To measure.
- n. Measure; limit; boundary; -- used chiefly in the plural, and in the phrase
metes and bounds .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a line that indicates a boundary
Etymologies
- From Middle English meten, from Old English metan ("to measure, mete out, mark off, compare, estimate; pass over, traverse"), from Proto-Germanic *metanan (“to measure”), from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure, consider”). Cognate with Scots mete ("to measure"), West Frisian mjitte ("to measure"), Dutch meten ("to measure"), German messen ("to measure"), Swedish mäta ("to measure"), Latin modus ("limit, measure, target"), Ancient Greek μεδίμνος (medímnos, "measure, bushel"), Ancient Greek μέδεσθαι (médesthai, "care for"), Old Armenian միտ (mit, "mind"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English meten, from Old English metan. Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Latin mēta, turning post, boundary. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And than seyde Halaon, Thou were as a god of the Sarazines: and it is convenyent to a god, to ete no mete, that is mortalle; and therfore thou schalt not ete, but precyous stones, riche perles, and tresour, that thou lovest so moche.”
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation
“Sarazines: and it is convenyent to a god, to ete no mete, that is mortalle; and therfore thou schalt not ete, but precyous stones, riche perles, and tresour, that thou lovest so moche.”
“Professional Journalism has 5 W's, and a How, in every news item in order to mete the measure of professional credibility -- Who What Where When Why, and How.”
“Two Rikers Island correction officers pleaded guilty Friday to assault charges in connection with allowing prisoners to mete out enforcement on their behalf to keep order in the cellblocks they were guarding.”
The Wall Street Journal: Correction Officers Plead Guilty in Rikers Assaults
“Goodell's action also acknowledges that no matter how the case was handled by the police and other authorities in Georgia, the strong arm of a serious sports commissioner can right some wrongs and mete out very significant, old school-style punishment.”
“This includes plans to "hand police, local authorities and the courts sweeping powers to mete out severe punishments to those involved in the unrest," and perhaps even crowd-control tactics like water cannons, according to the AP.”
The Huffington Post: Michelle Chen: After the Riots, "Broken" Britain Grows Still More Fractured
“And it has triggered a guessing game over whether the new iPhone is genuine, how it got into the hands of the website and what sort of punishment the highly secretive Apple bosses might mete out to the software engineer apparently responsible for losing it.”
“While apparently the head of the KKK stands by for the next order, ready to mete out punishment, and smoking a cigar.”
“When you escape, they will need to mete out additional punishment.”
“As a child, I would literally tremble at the sound of her stomping down the stairs to mete out some punishment for failings I could never seem to avoid.”
The Huffington Post: Lorraine Devon Wilke: The Mother Of My Reinvention
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mete’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 99 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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bad memory
copper, anvil, oblique, thrust, shrine, welfare, farewell, bitter, faction, sectarian, tangible, spectacle and 134 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 569 more...
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Hence
Words with definitions that have a "hence" in them.
hanger, Deet, tripe, spindlelegs, fiddle, store, pluck, snap, villain, link, comedy, particular and 410 more...
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reams of dreams
imagine, muse, aspire, reverie, aisling, mette, sweven, hatch, fancy, Puck, Tangerine Dream, Eingana and 30 more...
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SAT words
tergiversate, cymotrichous, vigilance, wince, consternation, cower, neutralize, euphony, cacophony, misanthrope, bibliophile, kleptomania and 81 more...
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Neuro-logical ??
The discovering of neuro and phago-cyte nano-engineered biology...
opsoclonus, opsomania, speciefic, opsonin, reveal, parsec, stereopsis, scarious, ablative absolute, presage, requisitory, nuance and 62 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mete.
ruzuzu "To dream: often used impersonally: as, me mette, I dreamed.
Hence To lose the use of one's senses; be out of one's mind."
--CD&C May 12, 2012
yarb No, I'm pretty sure it counts as an amber word. Mar 28, 2011
Rick Is there a present context in which 'mete' is used without 'out', as in mete out? Mar 28, 2011
bexx Mete(n): v., dream
Middle English, now obs.
Cf sweven, dream Mar 29, 2007