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Mease
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring. UK, dated, dialectal
"a mease of herrings"
- 2 A mess, a mese: a meal. obsolete
"I want my mease of milk when I go to my work."
- 3 A dwelling or messuage. obsolete
"1628, July 15, was a Gild new erected by four young bachelors of the town, and kept at the college-house, of above twenty meases of persons, and the poor then well relieved."
- 4 Obsolete spelling of mesh (of a fishing net). alt-of, obsolete
"In the records of the series of trials which began soon afterwards, the following interesting description of a Mount's Bay seine in the seventeenth century is given: "Saynes are very long and deep nets, of a close or narrow mease, and lengthened at each end by sleeves of a larger mease, and are used in this anner, viz.: […]"
- 1 To catch or enmesh (fish) by the head in a seine.
"( […] and except also fish meased in the sleeves of certain nets, called seynes), of which no tithes are demanded; […]"
Etymology
The English Dialect Dictionary suggests Old Norse meiss (“wooden box, as would be used for counting fish”) as a source; The Century Dictionary suggests that the term comes via Old French from a Latin word *mesa (“barrel”). One can also compare German Mass (“measure”) and indeed measure itself.
Variant of mess / mese.
Presumably related to messuage.
From mesh?
From mesh?
A patronymic from May or a variant of Meece.
See also for "mease"
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Unscramble this word: mease