a1522 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1959) viii. xi. 20 Lyke as he had dyspite, and bostand men.

a1522 G. Douglas in tr. Virgil Æneid (1960) xii. Prol. 210 To hant bawdry and onlesum meyn.

1593 J. Eliot Ortho-epia Gallica 167 He is an Alchymist by his mine [Fr. mine].

1596 E. Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene vi. ix. sig. Gg4 Her rare demeanure, which him seemed So farre the meane of shepheards to excell, As that [etc.] . View more context for this quotation

1632 J. Hayward tr. G. F. Biondi Eromena 158 The Princesse, who had now converted her widdowly meane into fresh teares of conjugall affection.

1655 W. Sales Theophania IV. 107 The beauty of his person, his meine, and deportment considered together, had such a powerful influence, that even the chastest Virgins, to maintain their vertue, contended for his love.

1682 J. Banks Vertue Betray'd i. i. 25 Behold the Queen in her first State and Greatness! But yet she bears it with no welcome meen.

1713 R. Steele Englishman No. 1. 2 It is a Jest..to talk of amending the Mein and Air of a Cripple.

1724 M. Concanen in Misc. Poems 71 One of these Fops, who crowd behind our Scenes, To shew their ill-shap'd Legs, and awkward Miens.

1785 W. Cowper Tirocinium in Task 829 See..Fops at all corners, lady-like in mien . View more context for this quotation

1818 J. Morier Second Journey through Persia viii. 143 The Governor of Kashan, a man of humble mein although of considerable rank, came in.

1866 A. Trollope Belton Estate I. v. 124 He could assume a look and mien that were almost noble.

1886 J. Ruskin Præterita II. v. 174 Gordon's downcast mien did not change.

1907 J. Joyce Chamber Music viii Who passes in the sweet sunlight With mien so virginal?

1947 M. Lowry Under Volcano ii. 66 You might have acquired..a mien, a mask, a way, at any rate, of throwing a look into your face..of sublime dishonest detachment.

1967 C. Jackson Second-hand Life (1968) ii. 153 If it had been Jack, he would have been conscious of his whole mien as he sat there, conscious even of the effect his leg, with its show of bare flesh, was having on any watching female.

1981 P. P. Read Villa Golitsyn i. vi. 43 Short, thick-set, strutting husbands, men with bulls' necks and self-important miens.

c1586 J. Stewart Poems (1913) 31 Bayard haid so guid and natral meine He vald not reullit be in ryding rycht.

a1642 J. Suckling Lett. Divers Eminent Personages 60 in Fragmenta Aurea (1646) Nothing, Madam, has worse Mine than counterfeit sorrow.

1684 T. Burnet Theory of Earth i. iii. 31 Then what can have more the figure and meen of a ruine, than Crags and Rocks, and Cliffs.

1695 J. Woodward Ess. Nat. Hist. Earth 18 Some..had..Metallick or Mineral Matter..insinuated into their substance..so as to disguise them very much, and give them a face and mien extremely unlike to that of those Shells [etc.].

1807 J. Barlow Columbiad iv. 158 Yes! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea Yield or withold their various gifts for thee; Protected Industry beneath thy reign Leads all the virtues in her filial train; Courageous Probity with brow serene, And Temperance calm presents her placid mien.

1826 S. Woodworth Melodies 5 Yon enamoured billow Delighted to the stranger creeps, And makes his breast her pillow. The rest, with dark and frowning mien, And jealous murmurs, languish.

1858 Atlantic Monthly Feb. 430/2 With dogged mien he stalks gravely back to his stronghold. You exclaim, ‘It is a Lobster!’ A lobster truly; but saw you ever a lobster with such presence before?

1874 Scribner's Monthly Dec. 205/2 The Gorham plate, made by silversmiths, borrows the mien of nobility from its antecedents, and cannot be distinguished from the finest style of solid silver.

1879 A. Anderson Ballads & Sonnets 151 And violets that scarce are seen Until you stoop, with patient eye, And see them in their lowly mien, Blue droplets shaken from the sky.

1902 W. Carleton Songs of Two Centuries 17 Now all of the days one day were met With sober and anxious mien, To choose which one they owed the debt Of crowning it king or queen.

1917 T. Hardy Moments of Vision & Misc. Verses 118 The white and green was a daisied field, The pink and white Ethleen. And as I looked it seemed in kind That difference they had none; The two fair bodiments combined As varied miens of one.

1972 H. Heinzel et al. Birds Brit. & Europe (BNC) 180 Where Little Owl has low-browed, frowning mien, Tengmalm's brows appear to be raised, as if slightly surprised, accentuated by blacker edge of facial disc and broader white eyebrows.

1990 ‘A. J. Orde’ Death & Dogwalker (1993) 35 I saw the pictures of her dear departed Flopsy and Mopsy, too, miniature poodles of discouraging mien.

1680 H. More Apocalypsis Apocalypseos 196 The mien of his face conjoyned with the posture of his body betrayed such a pitch of veneration and worship, as [etc.].

1697 R. Bentley Diss. Epist. Phalaris 51 The same word is inverted to a new sense and notion; which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a Language, as Age makes in the lines and mien of a Face.

1699 R. Bentley Diss. Epist. Phalaris (new ed.) Pref. p. xcvi Another happy phrase, which, he [sc. Boyle] says, I have newly minted, is The Meen of a Face; which as he takes it, is much the same thing with the Behaviour of a Look or the Carriage of a Smile... Meen does not signifie Behaviour, even when it's spoken of the whole Person, but the Air and Look that results from it.

1890 Cent. Mag. Nov. 15 The food of this people is mien or vermicelli, and cakes of wheat flour called mo-kui or mo-mo, varying only in size and thickness, but never in their sodden indigestibility.

1898 Cent. Mag. Sept. 690/2 Millet and coarse flour, from which the mien or dough-strings are made, is the foundation, at least, for more than half the subsistence of the common classes.

1936 P. Fleming News from Tartary v. ix. 235 At noon they woke me for a meal of mien and boiled vegetables.

1945 B. Y. Chao How to cook & eat in Chinese ii. xix. 195 Wheat is eaten more than rice as the staple food... When it is eaten wet, it is in the form of mien, or unraised noodles.

1992 Free China Rev. Apr. 50/2 Noodles, called mien..or mien tiao..are the most basic food of northern China.

1902 Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 471/1 When mixed with the Chinese the Muongs and the Thôs are known as the Hung-dans, Mâns, and Miens.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia X. 798/2 at Yao The Yao of Thailand, also called Man or Mien, exorcise evil spirits with incantations written in a form of Chinese.

1991 W. B. Tuchrello Thailand (Countries of World) iib The Mien were even more recent arrivals [in Thailand], most of them having come from Laos after 1945.

1999 Encycl. Brit. Online (Version 99.1) at Tung Influenced by the Yao (Mien), the Miao (Hmong), and other Austroasiatic peoples, the Tung live at intermediate elevations in large houses built on pilings.

1961 Bull. School Oriental & Afr. Stud. 24 531 This [book] also contains a bibliography of manuscript material on the Yao dialects. Highland Yao is substantially equivalent to his [sc. A. G. Haudricourt's] ‘Mien’.]

1977 C. F. Voegelin & F. M. Voegelin Classif. & Index World's Langs. 228 Mien=Yao=Man... 300,000 [speakers] in China, 200,000 in North Vietnam and Laos (60,000) and in Thailand; perhaps Burma.

1987 M. Ruhlen Guide World's Langs. I. 148 Mien (= Yao) has about one million [speakers].

1996 B. F. Grimes Ethnologue (ed. 13) 801 Not all ethnic Yao [in Vietnam] speak Mien; many speak Chinese.

1987 M. Ruhlen Guide World's Langs. I. iv. 154 The Mioa-Yao family is bifurcated into the Miao language as one group and the small Yao (= Mien) family as the other.]

1992 Internat. Encycl. Linguistics II. 178/1 Speakers of Laka, Mun, Punu, Pa Heng, Iu Mien, as well as speakers of other Mien and Hmongic languages and ethnic Yao who speak Chinese, are all officially included under the Yao nationality in China.

1998 London (Ont.) Free Press 5 Dec. G3 The Yao, or Mien, women were easy to spot because their outfits were punctuated by a red pom-pom-type ruff around the neckline.

1999 Encycl. Brit. Online (Version 99.1) at Vietnam Hmong (Miao, or Meo) and Mien groups, who speak languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family, are scattered at higher elevations.

c1680 W. Beveridge Serm. (1729) I. 354 Methinks I see him looking upon them, and miening himself as angry with them.