Meaning

3 senses

  1. A gift; bribe.

  2. (dated)Merit; worth.

  3. (archaic, literary)A payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward; award.

    1880, translation by Richard Francis Burton of Os Lusiadas, Canto IX, stanza 93 by Luís de Camões Better to merit and the meed to miss, than, lacking merit, every meed possess.

More definitions
  • a fitting reward

Examples

1 sentences

  1. History's page hath yielded to thee her meed of praise.

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Origin

From Middle English meede, mede, from Old English mēd, meord, meard, meorþ (“meed, reward,

From Middle English meede, mede, from Old English mēd, meord, meard, meorþ (“meed, reward, pay, price, compensation, bribe”), from Proto-West Germanic *miʀdu, from Proto-Germanic *mizdō (“meed”), from Proto-Indo-European *misdʰéh₂, from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to exchange”).

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: meeds
Singularmeed
Pluralmeeds

regular

Word family

2 related words
Derivedmeedfulmeedless

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
medlarmedleymedusameekmeerkatmeetA1
meed — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto