喜樂美語

One way to hold it: 'mere' puts a frame around a noun and says 'this and nothing else' — no extras, nothing added. From there it can shrink a thing ('a mere child' = only a child) or, surprisingly, make it larger ('the mere thought' = only the thought, and even that was enough). Careful: the noun 'mere' meaning a lake is a different word that just happens to be spelled the same.

可以想成 mere 在名詞外面畫一個框，然後說「就這樣，沒別的了」——沒有多餘的、沒有加料的。框一畫下去，可能是把東西縮小（a mere child，不過就是個孩子），也可能反過來把它放大（the mere thought，光是想一下，就已經夠了）。要注意：名詞的 mere（湖）跟這個形容詞只是拼法一樣，是兩個不同的字。

From the word’s history

The adjective goes back to Latin 'merus' = unmixed (of wine), pure, bare — which is exactly the modern feel: this and nothing mixed in. The noun 'mere' (lake) is a separate line, Old English 'mere' = sea, lake, from Proto-Germanic *mari (the same root family as 'marsh' and Latin 'mare').

形容詞的 mere 來自拉丁文 merus，原意是（酒）沒有兌過、純的、光禿禿的——正好就是今天的感覺：只有這個，沒有摻別的東西。名詞的 mere（湖）走的是完全另一條路：古英語 mere 意思是海、湖，來自原始日耳曼語 *mari，跟 marsh、拉丁文 mare（海）同一家族。兩個字從頭到尾沒有關係。

etymonline.com/word/mere; Wiktionary 'mere'

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

同家族的字

a最高級 merest

n複數 meres

意思相近

onlylakejustpondsimplepoolbarelochslightesttarnsmallest

原始詞典資料16 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

Merename

  • 1

    A village and civil parish in northern Cheshire East district, Cheshire, England (OS grid ref SJ7381).

  • 2

    A small town and civil parish with a town council in south-west Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref ST8132).

  • 3

    A sub-municipality in East Flanders, Belgium.

mereadj詞源 1/mɪə̯/

  • 1

    Just, only; no more than, pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.

    • The mere thought of pineapple on pizza makes me want to throw up.
    • The mere suggestion that the queen’s brother tried to kill your boy would be considered treason.
  • 2

    obsoletePure, unalloyed .

    • So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion[…].
    • Meere [translating pure] ignorance, and wholy relying on others, was verily more profitable and wiser, than is this verball, and vaine knowledge[…].
  • 3

    obsoleteNothing less than; complete, downright .

    • If every man might have what he would[…]we should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
    • This freedom of expostulation exalted his mother's ire to meer frenzy […].

merenoun詞源 2/mɪə̯/

  • 1

    Boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line.

    • The Troian Brute did first that Citie found, / And Hygate made the meare thereof by West, / And Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.

mereverb詞源 2/mɪə̯/

  • 1

    obsoleteTo limit; bound; divide or cause division in.

  • 2

    obsoleteTo set divisions and bounds.

  • 3

    cartographygeographynatural-sciencesTo decide upon the position of a boundary; to position it on a map.

    • What chance is there of revising this example of case law to include an exception to the generally cited rule when an administrative boundary has been mered in the past to coincide with a private property boundary?

merenoun詞源 3/mɪə̯/

  • 1

    obsoleteSynonym of sea, a large body of salt water.

  • 2

    obsoleteSynonym of inlet, an arm of the sea.

  • 3

    dialectalliteraryA body of standing water, inclusive of lakes, ponds, and pools, especially any broad and shallow one.

    • When making for the Brooke, the Falkoner doth espie On River, Plash, or Mere, where store of Fowle doth lye:
    • The meres of Shropshire and Cheshire.
  • 4

    dialectalSynonym of marsh.

    • Cully Barnaby: Right to roam, Dad. She has got a point. DCI Tom Barnaby: But it's a mere. Who'd want to walk across a mere?

merenoun詞源 5/mɪə̯/

  • 1

    A Maori war-club.

    • As Owen prepared to dismiss the matter, Rule produced something that really caught the great man's eye – a greenstone mere, the warclub of the Maori.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

  • mayor and mair

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。