meed
/miːd/
meed noun: a payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward; award.
Noun
meed (plural meeds)
- A payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward; award.
- For well ſhe wiſt,as true it was indeed / That her liues Lord and patrone of her health / Right well deſerued as his duefull meed, / Her loue,her ſeruice,and her vtmoſt wealth.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 6
- Brought up in darkness, and the child of sin,
Yet, as the meed of spotless innocence,
Just Heaven permitted her by one good deed
To work her own redemption, after death.1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and...
- A gift; bribe.
- Merit; worth.
- […]my meed hath got me fame:[…]c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- In any case, his life would be in ignominy and would be brief, and he would have lost irretrievably the meed of valour.1934, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Commentary on The Holy Qur'an, note 3687 on 33:16
Verb
meed (third-person singular simple present meeds, present participle meeding, simple past and past participle meeded)
meed meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
meed in Tamil
- கூலி, ஊதியம்
meed in Urdu
- اجر, محنتانہ, صلہ
meed in Malayalam
- കൂലി, പ്രതിഫലം, പാരിതോഷികം, സമ്മാനം
Examples of meed in a sentence
- Public gratitude, therefore, stamps her seal upon it, and the meed should not be withheld which may here after operate as a stimulus to our gallant tars.1829, Andrew Jackson, First Annual Message to Congress:
- Nor, save for a circumstance presently to be named, could even the Abbess's sullen curiosity have withheld a meed of admiration as the panorama unfolded itself before her.1904, Stanley J. Weyman, “V. The Captain of Vlaye”, in The Abbess of Vlaye:
- [Poirot continued,] "And here a full meed of praise is due to Hastings, who made a simple and obvious remark to which no attention was paid."1936, Agatha Christie, The A.B.C. Murders:
- The shed staff deserve their meed of praise for the result, but I believe that Driver Willie Bain is largely responsible.1953 October, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 686:
Forms of meed
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | meeds |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | meeds |
| present participle | meeding |
| past participle | meeded |
| past | meeded |
Origin of meed
From Middle English meede, mede, from Old English mēd, meord, meard, meorþ (“meed, reward, pay, price, compensation, bribe”), from Proto-West Germanic *miʀdu, from Proto-Germanic *mizdō (“meed”), from Proto-Indo-European *misdʰéh₂, from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to exchange”). Cognate with obsolete Dutch miede (“wages”), Low German Meed (“rent”), German Miete (“rent”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌶𐌳𐍉 (mizdō, “meed, reward, payment, recompense”); further Ancient Greek μισθός (misthós, “wage”), Old Church Slavonic мьзда (mĭzda, “reward”), Sanskrit मीळ्ह (mīḷhá), Sanskrit मीढ (mīḍhá), Avestan 𐬨𐬍𐬲𐬛𐬀 (mīžda).
From Middle English meden, from Old English *mēdian (“to reward, bribe”), from Proto-West Germanic *miʀdōn, from Proto-Germanic *mizdōną (“to reward”), from Proto-Indo-European *misdʰ- (“to pay”). Cognate with German Low German meden (“to hire, lease, rent”), German mieten (“to rent”).
Words formed from meed
Words that rhyme with meed
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- weed
- proceed
- stampede
- concede
- accede
- deed
- exceed
- need
- bede
- knead
- mislead
- plead
- rede
- swede
- cede
- creed
- godspeed
- heed
- intercede
- keyed
- leed
- precede
- recede
- tumbleweed
- a friend in need is a friend indeed
- beread
- greed
- he'd
- indeed
- interbreed
- kneed
- mead
- secede
- she'd
- sneed
- steed
- supersede
- underfeed
- we'd
- ye'd
- agreed
- anasheed
- aniseed
- atheed
- caid
- co-feed
- cofeed
- counterplead
Questions about meed
- What does meed mean?
- Meed means a payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward; award.
- What is meed in Tamil?
- Meed in Tamil is கூலி, ஊதியம். See Meed meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use meed in a sentence?
- Public gratitude, therefore, stamps her seal upon it, and the meed should not be withheld which may here after operate as a stimulus to our gallant tars.
- What part of speech is meed?
- Meed can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce meed?
- Meed is pronounced /miːd/ (UK).
- What is the plural of meed?
- The plural of meed is meeds.
Words near meed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: meed (page history and authors); meed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); meed (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); meed (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-meed.wav.
Cite this entry: “meed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.