mete1
/miːt
/- Certainly it was a shocking and upsetting moment when his punishment was meted out to him with so little justice, especially when he is told that he must become a Christian.
- Severe punishments will be meted out on violators, particularly those who abuse the internet to download and spread ‘poisonous and harmful’ information.
- No punishments have been meted out to anyone as yet but an investigation is going on.
Synonyms
- It is recorded in Jeremiah that everyone will be meted out retribution for his own sins.
- It brings to mind an old warning: ‘With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’
Origin
Old English metan 'measure', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch meten and German messen 'to measure', from an Indo-European root shared by Latin meditari 'meditate', Greek medesthai 'care for', also by meet2.
meat from Old English:
Meat is related to mete (Old English), an old word meaning ‘to measure’, and mate (Late Middle English) through the idea of a mate being someone you share food with. It goes back to an ancient root shared with meditate (late 16th century). The earliest sense of meat was simply ‘food’. This survives in the proverb one man's meat is another man's poison, which is recorded in English from the late 16th century but has a parallel in the work of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius of the 1st century bc. Other early meanings include ‘an item of food’, now found only in sweetmeat (Late Middle English). See also flesh
Rhymes
mete2
/miːt/Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin meta 'boundary, goal'.