mease

Meanings

Noun

• A measure of varying quantity, often five or six (long or short) hundred, used especially when counting herring.
• A mess, a mese: a meal.
• A dwelling or messuage.
• (of a fishing net).

Verb

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

Origin

• 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. One can also compare German Mass ("measure") and indeed measure itself.
• Variant of mess / mese.
• Presumably related to messuage.
• From mesh?