Word.ws English Dictionary

mesne

/miːn/

mesne adjective: intermediate.

Adjective

mesne (not comparable)

  1. Intermediate.
    • a mesne lord
    • Thus all the land in the kingdom is supposed to be holden, mediately or immediately, of the sovereign, who is styled the lord paramount, or above all. Such tenants as held under the crown immediately, when they granted out portions of their lands to inferior persons, became also lords with respect...1767, William Blackstone, “The Rights of Things”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, volume 2, page 60

Noun

mesne (plural mesnes)

  1. A mesne lord.
    • Lord, mesne, and tenant; the tenant holdeth by four pence, and the mesne by twelve pence.1628, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Thomas Littleton, Francis Hargrave, Charles Butler, Sir Matthew Hale, Heneage Finch Earl of Nottingham, The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, Or, A...

Forms of mesne

pluralmesnes

Origin of mesne

From Anglo-Norman mesne, a variant of moien. Doublet of mean.

Words formed from mesne

Phrases with mesne

Words that rhyme with mesne

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mesne

What does mesne mean?
Mesne means intermediate.
What part of speech is mesne?
Mesne can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce mesne?
Mesne is pronounced /miːn/.

Words near mesne in the dictionary

  1. mesnalities
  2. mesnality
  3. mesnaltie
  4. mesnalties
  5. mesnalty
  6. mesne
  7. mesne lord
  8. mesne lords
  9. mesnes
  10. meso
  11. meso compound

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mesne (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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