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''mete'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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Primary

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''mete'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260605232103-00-⌔

mete - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

mete (third-person singular simple present metes, present participle meting, simple past and past participle meted)

  • (transitive, usually with “out”) To dispense, measure in order to dispense, allot (especially punishment, reward etc.).
    • ✤ Match’d with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
      Unequal laws unto a savage race      1
    • ✤ Every generation metes out substantially the same punishment to those who fall far below and those who rise high above its standards.2
    • ✤ For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.3
    • 1870s Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Soothsay, lines 80-83
      • ✤ the Power that fashions man
      • ✤ Measured not out thy little span
      • ✤ For thee to take the meting-rod
      • ✤ In turn,

Noun

mete (plural metes)

  • A boundary or other limit; a boundary-marker; mere.

Adjective

mete (comparative more mete, superlative most mete)

  • Obsolete spelling of meet (“suitable, fitting”).
    • ✤ I could not finde any man for whose name this booke was more agreable for hope[of] protection, more mete for submission to iudgement, nor more due for respect of worthynesse of your part and thankefulnesse of my husbandes and myne.4

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /miːt/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -iːt
  • Homophones: meat, meet

Etymology 1

From Middle English meten, from Old English metan (“to measure, mete out, mark off, compare, estimate; pass over, traverse”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡metan, from Proto-Germanic ﹡metaną (“to measure”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡med- (“to measure, consider”).

Cognate with Scots mete (“to measure”), Saterland Frisian meete (“to measure”), West Frisian mjitte (“to measure”), Dutch meten (“to measure”), German messen (“to measure”), Swedish mäta (“to measure”), Latin modus (“limit, measure, target”), Ancient Greek μεδίμνος (medímnos, “measure, bushel”), Ancient Greek μέδεσθαι (médesthai, “care for”), Old Armenian միտ (mit, “mind”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English mete, from Old French mete (“boundary, boundary marker”), from Latin mēta (“post, goal, marker”). Cognate with the second element in Old English *wullmod * (“distaff”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English mete, imete, from Old English mǣte, ġemǣte (“moderate, suitable”). More at meet.

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1833, Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses: ↩

  2. 1929, Kirby Page, Jesus Or Christianity A Study In Contrasts ‎, page 31: ↩

  3. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 7:2: ↩

  4. 1570, Margaret Ascham, Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, foreword: ↩

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Secondary

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