mese meaning (obsolete): definition, etymology

mese

noun

Etymology From Middle English mese, mes, mees (“dinner, dish”), from Old English mēse, mēose, mīse, mȳse (“table; that which is set on a table; dish; food, meal”), a vernacular loan from Latin/Late Latin mē(n)sa (“table; meal”). Cognate with Scots mes, mese (“a serving of food”), Old High German mias, meas (German Mus, Gemüse), Gothic 𐌼𐌴𐍃 (mēs). Compare Old English mēsan (“to eat, dine”), from Proto-Germanic *mōsijaną, from Proto-Germanic *mōsą, an ablaut variant of the root Proto-Germanic *mat- (“food”).

Obsolete A dinner; meal.

mese

verb

Etymology From Middle English mesen, of North Germanic origin. More at meek.

To moderate; subdue; abate; mollify.

mese

noun

Etymology Unadapted borrowing from Latin mesē, from Ancient Greek μέση (mésē, literally “middle [string]”).

In Ancient Greek musical theory, the highest-pitched fixed note in the nearer tetrachord on a lyre, always pitched a perfect fourth above the hypate, with two movable notes between them, the parhypate (lower in pitch) and the lichanos (higher in pitch). The mese was lower than the paramese (the lower-pitched fixed note in the farther tetrachord on a lyre) by a ratio of 8:9.

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