Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
mease en · NOUN · etymology 1
Pronunciation
/miːz/
Etymology
The English Dialect Dictionary suggests Old Norse meiss (“wooden box, as would be used for counting fish”) as a source; The Century Dictionary suggests that the term comes via Old French from a Latin word *mesa (“barrel”). One can also compare German Mass (“measure”) and indeed measure itself.
Meanings
(UK, dated, dialectal) A measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring.
a mease of herrings
At Portavogie a few mease of herring were landed in June by some twenty-five boats. 1905, Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland, page xviii:
During the past few days large quantities of herrings have been caught at Clovelly. One fisherman, James Small, brought in about twenty mease (mease, 600). The prices realised have fallen so low as 5s. per mease. 1895 November 23, Western Morning News:
The weekly returns will show a great falling off in the herring fishing which it may be said was a complete failure—and consequently caused a falling off of the revenues of the Harbour. There were only 521 mease of herrings sold at an average price of £1 2s 7¾d., or total £590. 1894, [British] Parliamentary Papers: 1850-1908, volume 24, page 70:
I want my mease of milk when I go to my work. 1590, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, A Looking Glass for London and England:
they shal have [...] every mease of two dishes, one with pottage & boiled meate, the other roste (if it be no fasting day.) And if it be a fish daye, then they shal have two like meases of white meate & fish. 1779, Francis Peck, Desiderata Curiosa: Or, A Collection of Divers Scarce and Curious Pieces:
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meases
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mease en · NOUN · etymology 3
Pronunciation
/miːz/
Etymology
Presumably related to messuage.
Meanings
(obsolete) A dwelling or messuage.
William Raynshaw, of Hulme, in the county of Lancaster, complains that whereas Hamnett Bent was seised in his demesne as of fee of certain meases of land, meadow, and pasture with appurtenances in Hulme […] c. 1541, William Ranshaw versus John Hayward and Others re Title to Goods and Chattels at Hulme, reported in the Pleadings and Depositions in the Duchy Court of Lancaster, time of Henry VIII (1897), volume 35, page 134
1628, July 15, was a Gild new erected by four young bachelors of the town, and kept at the college-house, of above twenty meases of persons, and the poor then well relieved. 1805, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk:
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meases
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mease en · NOUN · etymology 4
Pronunciation
/miːz/
Etymology
From mesh?
Meanings
(alt-of, obsolete) Obsolete spelling of mesh (of a fishing net).
In the records of the series of trials which began soon afterwards, the following interesting description of a Mount's Bay seine in the seventeenth century is given: "Saynes are very long and deep nets, of a close or narrow mease, and lengthened at each end by sleeves of a larger mease, and are used in this anner, viz.: […] 1972, Cyril Noall, Cornish Seines and Seiners: A History of the Pilchard Fishing Industry, page 70, quoting an older work
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meases
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lexicographic
mease en · VERB · etymology 4
Pronunciation
/miːz/
Etymology
From mesh?
Meanings
To catch or enmesh (fish) by the head in a seine.
[…] and also the customary payment for all pilchards taken in seynes (except meased pilchards); but they insisted that they ought not to pay any tithe or other thing in lieu thereof for lobsters or pilchards caught in driving nets […] or were meased in the sleeves of seynes […] 1826, Francis King Eagle, Edward Younge, A Collection of the Reports of Cases, the Statutes, and Ecclesiastical Laws, Relating to Tithes: With a Copious Analytical Index, page 529:
[…] except only such fish as have been used for bate to catch other fish, and also fish meased (or caught by the head) in the sleeves of certain nets called saynes. 1900, The English Reports: House of Lords (1677-1865), page 1055:
Those fish 'meased', i.e., enmeshed in the sleeves of the seines, usually few, also belonged to the workers. 1974, James Whetter, Cornwall in the 17th Century: An Economic History of Kernow:
( […] and except also fish meased in the sleeves of certain nets, called seynes), of which no tithes are demanded; […] 1798, Hutton Wood, Great Britain. Court of Exchequer, A Collection of Decrees by the Court of Exchequer in Tithe-causes: From the Usurpation to the Present Time. [1650-1798], page 285