mesne

[ meen ]

/ min /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR mesne ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective Law.

intermediate or intervening.

RELATED WORDS

householder, feudatory, landlady

Nearby words

Origin of mesne

1350–1400; Middle English < Anglo-French, spelling variant of meen mean³

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for mesne

And it's not only what Mr. Aubrey will lose, but what he will be liable to—the mesne profits—sixty thousand pounds.
Ten Thousand a-Year (Vol. 2)|Samuel Warren
The trouble arose where he could not summon the mesne grantor, and the new right was given him for that case alone.
The Common Law|Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
In 1205 Farnham had bailiffs, and in 1207 it was definitely a mesne borough under the bishops of Winchester.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 2|Various
The resident lord of a manor was often the mesne tenant of one of these greater lords.
The English Village Community|Frederic Seebohm

After the Conquest, if not before, Dacre was a mesne manor held of the barons of Greystoke by military suit and service.
Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country|John Pagen White

British Dictionary definitions for mesne

mesne

/ (miːn) /

adjective law

intermediate or intervening: used esp of any assignment of property before the lasta mesne assignment

mesne profits rents or profits accruing during the rightful owner's exclusion from his land

Word Origin for mesne

C15: from legal French meien in the middle, mean ³

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for mesne

mesne

adj.

mid-15c., "mean;" altered spelling (by French influence) of Anglo-French meen "mean" (Old French meien "middle;" see mean (adj.); also cf. demesne).