[Buddha-l] Mere mereness

[Piya Tan]

Friends,

The OED (yes the original set) has this etymology of

mere, a.2 and adv.

(mI@(r))  Forms: 6 meare, mer, Sc. meir, 6?8 meer(e, (7 mear, myere).  [ad.
L. merus undiluted, unmixed, pure. Cf. OF. mer,
mier (AF. meer, which is the source of the Eng. word in legal uses), It.,
Sp., Pg. mero.
   In the OE. m\re pene?as (see B.-T.), app. = med.L. meri denarii (see Du
Cange, the adj. may be viewed as an adaptation of L. merus, or better as a
use of mere a.1 suggested
by the similarity in sound to the Latin word.]

[Sorry, some of the diacritics don't work here.]

In the noun entry, it says that at one time, it is often use with "mere
Irish".

The OED has actually over dozen listing for MERE.

Piya

On 8/31/06, curt <curt at cola.iges.org> wrote:
>
> That has interesting implications. As in "citta-maatra". One doesn't (or
> at least I don't) usually associate the Yogacara attitude toward
> consciousness with the word "mere". My Sanskrit is lousy to non-existent
> - is this the same "maatra" we are talking about?
> - Curt
>
> Richard P Hayes wrote:
> > Fools Crow wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Actually, the Latin origin of "mere" appears to have meant something
> >> like "undiluted".  Used precisely, in English from Middle English
> >> until well into the last century is meant "solely" or "no more nor
> >> better than what is specified".
> >>
> >
> > Although "mere" is not etymologically related to Sanskrit "maatra", my
> > impression is that the two words function in much the same way. In
> > Sanskrit "maatra" at the end of a compound means having something as
> > its full measure. So X-maatra means "nothing more nor less than X." I
> > suspect that "mere" can function in the same way. As C.S. Lewis
> > explains his usage, it sounds as though he takes "mere Christianity" to
> > mean something like nothing more nor less than Christianity.
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------
> > Richard Hayes
> > Department of Philosophy
> > University of New Mexico
> >
> > Office: 525 Humanities
> > Phone:  277-8232
> > _______________________________________________
> > buddha-l mailing list
> > buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> > http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20060831/893a2d65/attachment.html