mease
/miːz/
mease noun: a measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring. Also the obsolete spelling of mesh.
Noun (1)
mease (plural meases)
- 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
Noun (2)
mease (plural meases)
- 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
Noun (3)
mease (plural meases)
- 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)...
Verb
mease (third-person singular simple present meases, present participle measing, simple past and past participle meased)
- 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
Proper noun capitalized: Mease
Mease (plural Meases)
- A surname.
Also used as
mease is also the obsolete spelling of mesh.
Examples of mease in a sentence
- One fisherman, James Small, brought in about twenty mease (mease, 600).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:
- […] 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:
Forms of mease
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | meases |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | meases |
| present participle | measing |
| past participle | meased |
| past | meased |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Meases |
Origin of mease
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.
Variant of mess / mese.
Presumably related to messuage.
Questions about mease
- What does mease mean?
- Mease means a measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring.
- How do you use mease in a sentence?
- One fisherman, James Small, brought in about twenty mease (mease, 600).
- What part of speech is mease?
- Mease can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce mease?
- Mease is pronounced /miːz/.
- What is the plural of mease?
- The plural of mease is meases.
Words near mease in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mease (page history and authors); Mease (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “mease.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mease. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.