What's the difference between mere and mire?

Mere


Definition:

  • (n.) A pool or lake.
  • (n.) A boundary.
  • (v. t.) To divide, limit, or bound.
  • (n.) A mare.
  • (Superl.) Unmixed; pure; entire; absolute; unqualified.
  • (Superl.) Only this, and nothing else; such, and no more; simple; bare; as, a mere boy; a mere form.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Interphase death thus involves a discrete, abrupt transition from the normal state and is not merely the consequence of progressive and degenerative changes.
  • (2) By way of major complications, merely one perforation occurred.
  • (3) Indeed, the nationalist and religious right bloc merely held steady , gaining just one seat.
  • (4) A brief review of the last decade or so of developments in health politics, policy and law suggests that health is no longer a field of mere "dynamics without change."
  • (5) The view that testes found lateral to the external ring and which could be pushed some way into the scrotum were merely retractile was questioned.
  • (6) In these three patients, laxity of the knee in flexion was so severe that posterior instability could not be corrected merely by patellar relocation.
  • (7) It has so far returned a mere $6m (£3.6m) of its relatively meagre $28m (£17.1m) budget, according to Forbes, a percentage of just 21%.
  • (8) In the literature this disease is presented merely as a metastasis.
  • (9) The plasmid-encoded activity does not merely replace the RecBCD enzyme failure but differs in several significant ways.
  • (10) Furthermore, changes between merely perceived identical parts can result in apparent depth.
  • (11) Thus, the long stalks of Sk1 or phosphate-starved caulobacters are not merely a function of their longer doubling times.
  • (12) Exogenous macromolecular DNA was able to repair, to an important degree the radiotoxic effect of 3H-thymidine on V79 cells by a mechanism other than the mere reduction of specific activity of 3H-thymidine.
  • (13) Multiple contacts between the gamma-subunit and calmodulin (delta-subunit), as indicated by our data, may help to explain why strongly denaturing conditions are required to dissociate these two subunits, whereas complexes of calmodulin with most other target enzymes can be readily dissociated by merely lowering Ca2+ to submicromolar concentrations.
  • (14) Scott insisted he was an abstract painter in the way he felt Chardin was too: the pans and fruit were uninteresting in themselves; they were merely "the means of making a picture", which was a study in space, form and colour.
  • (15) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (16) These outcomes further supported the conclusion that the contextual stimuli exerted true conditional control over conditional relations in the equivalence classes and were not merely elements of compound stimuli.
  • (17) A mere glance at the time courses shows what reaction schemes are inapplicable.
  • (18) Since the discovery of the antidepressant effects of interventions in the sleep-wake cycle, a number of hypotheses have emerged according to which disturbances in sleep physiology are not merely expressions but essential components of the pathophysiology of depression.
  • (19) In a Facebook post , the songwriter and activist claims that Swift has merely chosen sides in the battle between Google and Spotify, saying that the singer was trying to “sell this corporate power play to us as some sort of altruistic gesture in solidarity with struggling music makers”.
  • (20) It is assumed that one function of grooming behaviour may be a merely cleansing one.

Mire


Definition:

  • (n.) An ant.
  • (n.) Deep mud; wet, spongy earth.
  • (v. t.) To cause or permit to stick fast in mire; to plunge or fix in mud; as, to mire a horse or wagon.
  • (v. t.) To soil with mud or foul matter.
  • (v. i.) To stick in mire.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For decades, resource extraction on First Nations land and chronically underfunded schools have left many of these communities mired in poverty, alcoholism and disease.
  • (2) Our computer-based corneal topography analysis system was used to study the keratoscope photographs (keratograms) from two patients with classic pellucid marginal degeneration and a third patient with no inferior corneal thinning, whose keratoscope mire pattern was suggestive of the condition.
  • (3) With an out-of-session Congress deadlocked over immigration reform and right-wing lawmakers hell-bent on “sealing the border”, the White House faces intense pressure to do something – anything – about immigration, after years of burying a civil rights crisis in a mire of political tone-deafness and jingoistic bombast.
  • (4) A leading thinktank has forecast that Britain will remain mired in recession this year, and slashed growth forecasts for almost all members of the G7 group of leading industrial nations.
  • (5) The European commission released a statement about the situation later on Wednesday, less than two weeks after agreeing a rescue deal for Greece that was meant to prevent Italy and Spain being dragged into the mire.
  • (6) The discovery of "serious failings" in the sale of these so-called interest rate swaps comes as the banking industry is mired in controversy about manipulating interest rates following the record-breaking £290m fine slapped on Barclays on Wednesday.
  • (7) Since the incumbent, Ilham Aliyev, inherited power from his late father 10 years ago, Azerbaijan has become mired in rampant corruption , and the ruling regime has grown ever more authoritarian and ruthless .
  • (8) The French president, François Hollande , will have 25 minutes on primetime television on Sunday evening to convince his nation that he will keep his election pledges and drag his country out of the economic mire.
  • (9) But I was wrong to peg Let’s Be Cops down in the mire with the Scary Movie franchise.
  • (10) Mired in a deepening recession, with the economy projected to shrink by at least 2.4% this year, Italy also posted more bad news, with retail sales figures for July showing a 3.2% fall on a year ago.
  • (11) Dismayingly, the elected government of the president, Ashraf Ghani, like that of Hamid Karzai before it, has proved incompetent, divided, and mired in corruption .
  • (12) Hunt also argued that the current "sink or swim system" in which free schools, academies and academy chains were managed by Whitehall, had left the school landscape mired in incoherence, confusion and lack of accountability.
  • (13) A government investigation into his death has become mired in controversy after a judge nominated to head the probe said he would not participate.
  • (14) The economy has been mired in recession for six consecutive quarters - the longest slump in history – but the CBI now expects output to grow by 1.2% in 2010 and by 2.5% in 2011.
  • (15) This is an attempt to increase choice and drive digital switchover, which is mired in difficulty but another key duty.
  • (16) Companies have cut staff and costs to the bone , but demand remains sluggish in the US, and Europe is still mired in a financial crisis of historic proportions.
  • (17) Her response on a Seattle cable channel to Barack Obama’s state of the nation address in January, in which she accused the president of betraying Americans mired in poverty , spread via the internet and reinforced her growing reputation among activists outside Seattle.
  • (18) The margin of victory was still a comfortable 95 runs, and the win lifts Warwicks well out of the relegation zone, while leaving Kent deeper in the mire.
  • (19) One small shareholder, who introduced himself as Captain Hawker, said BP had stepped into a “PR nightmare” by handing out such largesse when the rest of the country was mired in austerity.
  • (20) Last year 87% of the 900,000 migrants making the journey to Europe came through Greece but, following the European Union’s new deal with Turkey , smugglers’ gangs are already sizing up Libya – which is mired in the chaos of civil war – as an alternative route.

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