meinie
/ˈmeɪni/
meinie noun: a household, or family.
Noun
meinie (plural meinies)
- A household, or family.
- And whanne they in the caſtel wyſte hou ſire Palomydes had ſped there was a Ioyeful meyny / and ſoo ſir Palomydes departed / and came to the caſtell of Lonaȝep
"And when they in the castle wist how Sir Palomides had sped, there was a joyful meiny; and so Sir Palomides departed, and came to the...1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum lxiv”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book X, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer...
- And whanne they in the caſtel wyſte hou ſire Palomydes had ſped there was a Ioyeful meyny / and ſoo ſir Palomydes departed / and came to the caſtell of Lonaȝep
- A retinue.
- His speech thus spake the Moor, and took his leave,
he and his meiny where the bátels lay:
formal farewells to chief and crews he gave,
exchanging congees with due courtesy.1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume I, page 23 - And in the evening they went with their simple captain to his lodging; but a certain of his simple and rude meinie abode there all the night [...].1965, Jack Robert Lander, The Wars of the Roses
- His speech thus spake the Moor, and took his leave,
- A crowd of people; a rabble.
- For the mutable ranke-ſented Meynie, / Let them regard me, as I doe not flatter, / And therein behold themſelues.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Forms of meinie
| plural | meinies |
|---|---|
| alternative form | mayne |
| alternative form | mayné |
| alternative form | meiny |
| alternative form | meynee |
| alternative form | meynie |
Origin of meinie
From Middle English meine, meyne, from Anglo-Norman maigne and Old French mesnie (“household”), from Vulgar Latin *mānsiōnāta, from Latin mānsiō, mānsiōnem (“house”). Compare menial.
Questions about meinie
- What does meinie mean?
- Meinie means a household, or family.
- What part of speech is meinie?
- Meinie is a noun.
- How do you pronounce meinie?
- Meinie is pronounced /ˈmeɪni/ (UK).
- What is the plural of meinie?
- The plural of meinie is meinies.
Words near meinie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: meinie (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-meinie.wav.
Cite this entry: “meinie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meinie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.