mense
English
Etymology
From earlier mensk, from Middle English menske (“courtesy, honour”), from Old English mennisċu (“the human condition, humanity”) and/or Old Norse menska (“humanity”). More at mennish, mensch.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /mɛns/
Noun
mense (countable and uncountable, plural menses)
- Property, owndom; possessions.
- (UK, dialect) Decency; propriety; civility.
- 1812, John Bell, Rhymes of Northern Bards: Being a Curious Collection of Old and New Songs and Poems, Peculiar to the Counties of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, and Durham, page 185:
- ... But never a soul had the mense to come near them, […]
- 1842, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, Chambers's Information for the People, page 796:
- Little mense to the cheeks to bite aff the nose […]
- 1871, Henry Scott Riddell, The Poetical Works of Henry Scott Riddell, page 141:
- For she had baked a crumpie cake And butter scones, for mense's sake, To entertain her lodger.
- 1895, William Dunbar, Dunbar: Being a Selection from the Poems of an Old Makar, page 31:
- Be seen with men of mense, but turn aside From swicks and sweeps, the silly and the low […]
- 1904, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Men of the Moss-hags: Being a History of Adventure Taken from the Papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway, page 126:
- ... ye'll hae the sense and the mense to keep a calm sough, […]
- (UK, dialect) A large amount.
- 1841, Richard Winter Hamilton, Nugae Literariae: Prose and Verse, page 356:
- There is not a mense of snow in "smoky Leeds,"
- 1857, James Stewart, Sketches of Scottish Character, and Other Poems. The Late James Steward. With a Memoir of the Author, page 22:
- He has a mense o' pure nonsense,
Derived terms
Verb
mense (third-person singular simple present menses, present participle mensing, simple past and past participle mensed)
Anagrams
Afrikaans
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Noun
mense
French
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin mēnsa. Compare the inherited doublet moise, which acquired a technical sense.
Pronunciation
Noun
mense f (plural menses)
Related terms
Further reading
- “mense”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Interlingua
Etymology
Noun
mense (plural menses)
See also
Italian
Noun
mense f
- plural of mensa
Latin
Pronunciation
- (Classical Latin) IPA(key): [ˈmẽː.sɛ]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): [ˈmɛn.se]
Noun
mēnse
- ablative singular of mēnsis
Participle
mēnse
- vocative masculine singular of mēnsus