metely, moderately; ‘Metely good’, Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. iii, c. 16. OE. ge)met ice.
metereza, mistress. Middleton, More Dissemblers, v. 1 (Sinquapace); metreza, Marston, Malcontent, i. 1 (Malevole). Neither French nor Italian, but a mixture of the two (Nares). An alteration of F. maîtresse, with an Italian termination.
metoposcopy, divination by observing the forehead. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Subtle). Gk. μέτωπο-ν, forehead; σκοπεῖν, to observe.
meuse; see [muse].
meve, to move; ‘I meve or styrre from a place, je meuve’, Palsgrave; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. i, c. 2, § 7; meeve, Damon and Pithias (Nares); mieve, Spenser, F. Q. iv. 12. 26. ‘Meve’ is an E. Anglian form (EDD.). ME. mevyn, ‘amoveo’ (Prompt.). OF. moev- (meuv-), stressed stem of movoir, to move.
mew, to moult. Beaumont and Fl., Thierry, ii. 2 (Martell); Wildgoose Chase, i. 1 (La Castre). F. muer; L. mutare, to change.
mew, a coop for hawks; ‘Mewe for haukes, meue’, Palsgrave; a place of confinement, Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 20; ii. 5. 27 and 7. 19. F. mue, a hawk’s mue or coop; mue, a change, the mewing of a hawk (Cotgr.), fr. muer, ‘to change, to mew’ (ib.); L. mutare. Our word ‘mews’, for a range of stabling, is derived from the Mews by Charing Cross, the name of the place for the King’s horses, orig. the place for the king’s falcons and the royal falconer. See Stow’s Survey of London (ed. Thoms, 167).
mew: in phr. knights of the mew, knights of the cat-call; the least select among an audience at a theatre. Marston, What you Will, Induction (Doricus).
mich, to skulk, to lurk stealthily. Heywood, A Woman Killed (ed. 1874, ii. 113), spelt meach, Beaumont and Fl., Honest Man’s Fortune, v. 2. 11; hence micher, a truant, 1 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 450; a skulker, Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, ii. 2 (Yo. Loveless); spelt meecher, Bonduca, i. 2 (Petillius). ‘Mitch’ and ‘meech’ are in common prov. use (EDD.). ME. mychyn, or stelyn prively smale thyngys, ‘surripio, furtulo’ (Prompt. EETS. 301). Of Ger. origin, see Schade, Altdeutsches Wörterbuch (s.v. mûhhan). See NED. (s.v. Miche).
†miching malicho (meaning quite uncertain), Hamlet, iii. 2. 148. Textual variants are: myching Mallico, munching Mallico, miching mallecho.