Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A boundary line; a limit.
  • transitive verb To distribute or allot. Often used with out.
  • transitive verb Archaic To measure.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An abbreviation of Metallurgical Engineer.
  • To dream: often used impersonally: as, me mette, I dreamed.
  • Hence To lose the use of one's senses; be out of one's mind.
  • To dream.
  • noun Measure.
  • noun Computation; estimate; measure.
  • noun Limitation; limit: in the phrase metes and bounds (rarely in the singular mete and bound).
  • An obsolete form of meet.
  • To paint.
  • To ascertain the quantity, dimensions, extent, or capacity of, by comparison with a standard; measure.
  • To distribute or apportion by measure; measure or deal (out); dole.
  • To be a measure of; serve for determining or expressing the extent, quantity, or capacity of.
  • To take measure or line; aim.
  • An obsolete form of meet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Meat.
  • transitive verb To find the quantity, dimensions, or capacity of, by any rule or standard; to measure.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To measure.
  • noun Measure; limit; boundary; -- used chiefly in the plural, and in the phrase metes and bounds.
  • verb obsolete To dream; also impersonally.
  • verb obsolete To meet.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, archaic, poetic, dialectal To measure.
  • verb transitive, usually with “out” To dispense, measure (out), allot (especially punishment, reward etc.).
  • noun A boundary or other limit; a boundary-marker; mere.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a line that indicates a boundary

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Latin mēta, turning post, boundary.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English meten, from Old English metan; see med- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French mete ("boundary, boundary marker"), from Latin mēta ("post, goal, marker"), from Proto-Indo-European *meit- (“stake, post”). Cognate with Old English wullmod ("distaff").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Mete(n): v., dream

    Middle English, now obs.

    Cf sweven, dream

    March 30, 2007

  • Is there a present context in which 'mete' is used without 'out', as in mete out?

    March 28, 2011

  • No, I'm pretty sure it counts as an amber word.

    March 28, 2011

  • "To dream: often used impersonally: as, me mette, I dreamed.

    Hence To lose the use of one's senses; be out of one's mind."

    --CD&C

    May 12, 2012