Mesne
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A mesne lord.
"Lord, mesne, and tenant; the tenant holdeth by four pence, and the mesne by twelve pence."
- 1 Intermediate. not-comparable
"a mesne lord"
Example
More examples"Thus all the land in the kingdom is supposed to be holden, mediately or immediately, of the sovereign, who is styled the lord paramount, or above all. Such tenants as held under the crown immediately, when they granted out portions of their lands to inferior persons, became also lords with respect to those inferior persons, as they were still tenants with respect to the king; and, thus partaking of a middle nature, were called mesne, or middle, lords. So that if the king granted a manor to A., and he granted a portion of the land to B., now B. was said to hold of A., and A. of the king ... A. was both tenant and lord, or was a mesne lord : and B. was called tenant paravail, or the lowest tenant; being he who was supposed to make avail or profit of the land."
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman mesne, a variant of moien. Doublet of mean.
Related phrases
More for "mesne"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.