meer

[ewx]

gareth_rees queried my statement that meer had gone out of the language.

The uses of meer in Moll Flanders are:

p52. “The Ladies gave me Cloaths frequently of their own, or their Childrens, some Stockings, some Petticoats, some Gowns, some one thing, some another, and these my old Woman Managed for me like a meer Mother, and kept them for me, and oblig'd me to Mend them, and turn them and twist them to best Advantage, for she was a rare House-Wife.” Glossed as real, actual.

p204. “I was confounded now as much as he, and knew not what to say: I thought many ways that I had the worst of it, but his saying that he was undone, and that he had no Estate neither, put me into a meer distraction; why, says I to him, this has been a hellish Juggle, for we are married here upon the Foot of a double Fraud; you are undone by the Disappointment it seems, and if I had a Fortune I had been cheated too, for you say you have nothing.” Glossed as mere, absolute, entire.

p365. “ With these Reflections came in, of meer Course, severe Reproaches of my own Mind for my wretched Behaviour in my past Life; that I had forfeited all hope of any Happiness in the Eternity that I was just going to enter into, and on the contrary was entitul'd to all that was miserable, or had been conceiv'd of Misery; and all this with the frightful Addition of its being also Eternal.” Glossed as entirely naturally, irresistibly.

p370. “[...] as soon as they were gone, I fell into a fit of crying involuntarily, and without Design, but as a meer Distemper, and yet so violent, and it held me so long, that I knew not what Course to take, nor could I stop, or put a Checque to it, no not with all the Strength and Courage I had.” Glossed as utter (mental) derangement.

(Page numbers from the Penguin Classics edition, ISBN 0-140-43313-9. Apologies if I've missed any.)

NOAD2 gives:

mere
adjective [ attrib. ]
that is solely or no more or better than what is specified : it happened a mere decade ago | questions that cannot be answered by mere mortals.
(the merest) the smallest or slightest : the merest hint of makeup.
ORIGIN late Middle English (in the senses [pure] and [sheer, downright] ): from Latin merus ‘undiluted.’

I can believe from the remarks in the origin section that the modern word is derived from the word Defoe uses, but it does seem to have changed meaning in the intervening centuries. (I think the note for p204 identifying meer with the modern meaning is just plain wrong: Moll is not ‘just’ distracted, she is completely at a loss.)

Comments

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that "mere" had no obsolete senses, merely that "meer" was an old spelling for "mere" in all its senses.

Chambers gives the modern sense (1) "only what is said and nothing else, nothing more, nothing better" and three obsolete senses: (2) "absolute" (3) "unmixed" (4) "pure".

[chess]

Ah! I now understand better why CS Lewis called his book about basic Christianity 'Mere Christianity' - I imagine he knew all about the extra meanings of 'mere' and was playing on them in the title.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

What do you mean, gone? (http://twolumps.net/d/20041108.html) ;-)