mease

Meanings

1. A measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring.

1. A mess, a mese: a meal.

1. A dwelling or messuage.

1. Obsolete spelling of mesh (of a fishing net).

1. To catch or enmesh (fish) by the head in a seine.

1. A surname.

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.