Mere Meaning
/mɪə̯/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjJust, only; no more than, pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.
adjPure, unalloyed .
Sentence Examples
I'm not a real fish, I'm just a mere plushy.
You are no longer a mere child.
It took her a mere 20 minutes to win.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
It was a ____ five-minute walk from the hotel to the beach, so we decided to go.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It was a ____ coincidence that we both happened to be in the same small town at exactly the same time.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English mere, mer, from Anglo-Norman meer, from Old French mier, from Latin merus (“pure, unmixed, undiluted”), from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to sparkle, gleam”). Cognate with Old English āmerian, āmyrian (“to purify, examine, revise”). The Middle English word was perhaps influenced by or conflated with sound-alike Middle English mere (“glorious, noble, splendid, fine, pure”), from Old English mǣre (“famous, great, excellent, sublime, splendid, pure, sterling”), from Proto-West Germanic *mārī, from Proto-Germanic *mērijaz.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"And ſo vve may have an ever-grovving Idea of infinite Number as vvell as infinite Space or Emptineſs, yet it is a meer Idea, and hath no real Exiſtence vvithout us."
— 1733, I[saac] W[atts], “Essay I. A Fair Enquiry and Debate Concerning Space. Sect[ion] XII. Space Nothing Real, but a Meer Abstract Idea.”, in Philosophical Essays on Various Subjects, […], London: […] Richard Ford […], and Richard Hett […], →OCLC, page 44:
"Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;[…]."
— 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC:
"...And ocean salinity, of course, represented only the merest sliver of my ignorance. I didn't know what a proton was, didn't know a quark from a quasar, didn't know how geologists could look at a layer of rock on a canyon wall and tell you how old it was, didn't know anything, really. I became gripped by a quiet, unwonted but insistent urge to know a little more about these matters and to understand above all how people figured them out."
— 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything: Black Swan, page 23:
"More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel."
— 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
"Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story."
— 2012 March 26, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
It was a ____ five-minute walk from the hotel to the beach, so we decided to go.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It was a ____ coincidence that we both happened to be in the same small town at exactly the same time.