mease meaning (dated): definition, etymology and quotations

mease

noun

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.

UK, Dated, Dialectal A measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring.

a mease of herrings
The weekly returns will show a great falling off in the herring fishing which it may be said was a complete failure—and consequently caused a falling off of the revenues of the Harbour. There were only 521 mease of herrings sold at an average price of £1 2s 7¾d., or total £590.1894, [British] Parliamentary Papers: 1850-1908, volume 24, page 70:

2 more examples

During the past few days large quantities of herrings have been caught at Clovelly. One fisherman, James Small, brought in about twenty mease (mease, 600). The prices realised have fallen so low as 5s. per mease.1895 November 23, Western Morning News:
At Portavogie a few mease of herring were landed in June by some twenty-five boats.1905, Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland, page xviii:

mease

verb

Etymology From mesh?

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; […]1798, Hutton Wood, Great Britain. Court of Exchequer, A Collection of Decrees by the Court of Exchequer in Tithe-causes: From the Usurpation to the Present Time. [1650-1798], page 285
[…] and also the customary payment for all pilchards taken in seynes (except meased pilchards); but they insisted that they ought not to pay any tithe or other thing in lieu thereof for lobsters or pilchards caught in driving nets […] or were meased in the sleeves of seynes […]1826, Francis King Eagle, Edward Younge, A Collection of the Reports of Cases, the Statutes, and Ecclesiastical Laws, Relating to Tithes: With a Copious Analytical Index, page 529:

2 more examples

[…] except only such fish as have been used for bate to catch other fish, and also fish meased (or caught by the head) in the sleeves of certain nets called saynes.1900, The English Reports: House of Lords (1677-1865), page 1055:
Those fish 'meased', i.e., enmeshed in the sleeves of the seines, usually few, also belonged to the workers.1974, James Whetter, Cornwall in the 17th Century: An Economic History of Kernow:

mease

noun

Etymology Variant of mess / mese.

Obsolete A mess, a mese: a meal.

I want my mease of milk when I go to my work.1590, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, A Looking Glass for London and England:
they shal have [...] every mease of two dishes, one with pottage & boiled meate, the other roste (if it be no fasting day.) And if it be a fish daye, then they shal have two like meases of white meate & fish.1779, Francis Peck, Desiderata Curiosa: Or, A Collection of Divers Scarce and Curious Pieces:

mease

noun

Etymology Presumably related to messuage.

Obsolete A dwelling or messuage.

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.1805, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk:
William Raynshaw, of Hulme, in the county of Lancaster, complains that whereas Hamnett Bent was seised in his demesne as of fee of certain meases of land, meadow, and pasture with appurtenances in Hulme […]c. 1541, William Ranshaw versus John Hayward and Others re Title to Goods and Chattels at Hulme, reported in the Pleadings and Depositions in the Duchy Court of Lancaster, time of Henry VIII (1897), volume 35, page 134

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.