I. adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
mere coincidence (= only chance and nothing else )
▪
Is it mere coincidence that they always seem to employ men?
pure/mere speculation (= not based on any knowledge )
▪
A government official yesterday dismissed the reports as ‘pure speculation’.
sth's mere existence (= just the fact that something exists )
▪
The mere existence of a contract does not guarantee that you will be paid.
the mere mention of sth (= the fact of saying something that seems unimportant )
▪
The mere mention of his name caused her to burst into tears.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪
Now many are almost too vast to comprehend as mere cities built by human hands.
▪
Whatever the chancellor's motives, it is a mistake to dismiss his budget for savers as mere window-dressing.
▪
Those studies which concentrated on local-central relations ignored local politics because they saw local authorities as mere receptacles for central policy.
▪
What the former valued as a proper earthiness and sensuality, the latter condemned as mere vulgarity.
▪
Equally, concepts, the stuff of rules, can not exist in a vacuum as mere semantic toys.
▪
This was strong stuff, even if it was wrapped up as mere journalistic conjecture, and obviously Toby knew or suspected something.
▪
How on earth can the W.R.U. sell out over 100 years of tradition for such a thing as mere money.
▪
Nizan, in short, was accused by Sartre of treating his characters as mere ciphers of a particular class.
■ NOUN
coincidence
▪
I didn't tell him about the handbill I had found; indeed, I quickly dismissed that as a mere coincidence .
▪
Another mere coincidence , say school officials, adding that Tarkanian was adamant about having such a watchdog on staff.
▪
Logic suggests this can not be reduced to mere coincidence .
▪
It has happened too often to me to be mere coincidence .
▪
That may be mere coincidence-but it is also perhaps symbolic.
existence
▪
For Oakeshott the authority of respublica does not arise from the mere existence of a rule of recognition.
▪
Whybrew, at 79, is still very much alive and feeling lucky, but for reasons richer than mere existence .
▪
Chopra had felt pain; the pain of mere existence .
▪
What these entities ultimately accomplish may be academic; but their mere existence should give doomsayers cause for hope.
▪
But it is clear that the mere existence of an alternative remedy does not oust judicial review.
▪
The mere existence of unsolved puzzles within a paradigm does not constitute a crisis.
▪
But the mere existence of such contacts did not mean very much.
fact
▪
The mere fact that the member appeals should not in itself amount to a waiver.
▪
The mere fact that they are willing to undertake these repairs proves that they fear us.
▪
Faith can be impervious to mere facts .
▪
The mere fact of racial imbalance represented a form of inequality.
▪
The mere fact that this took the road through a school and a housing estate was of secondary interest.
▪
This does not mean that the mere fact of customer contact calls for heavy control.
▪
The mere fact that a vessel has sunk does not mean that there is a recoverable claim.
▪
Nevertheless, he says, the legend outweighs mere facts .
mention
▪
Some scholars, however, see Matthew's interest in the Church as going beyond the mere mention of the word.
▪
A mere mention was enough to remind me that I was not free, yet.
▪
She could understand her eight-year-old self, sick with terror at the mere mention of Fincara.
▪
There are lawyers who are proud of their craft, and get defensive at the mere mention of lawyer-bashing.
▪
I normally throw up at the mere mention of footy management, but Soccer Rivals is darn good.
▪
Ruth's heart jumped; escape was precisely what she'd thought of, at the mere mention of Fincara.
▪
The mere mention of precious Graham seemed to enrage Eunice even more.
▪
Pulses quicken at the mere mention of the name; grown men develop a glazed look in their eyes.
mortal
▪
Miracles can be worked by Him alone, although mere mortals may entreat Him by prayer to perform them on their behalf.
▪
A penchant for setting oneself apart and above mere mortals .
▪
They even have a chance of wounding monsters with a toughness of 8 - not bad for mere mortals !
▪
It would have been a proper punishment for a mere mortal who dared to suggest policy to the Son of Heaven.
▪
But mere mortals know the futility of trying to outguess the market.
▪
But strangely enough she did not care long for her divine lover; she preferred a mere mortal .
▪
Unlike mere mortals , Barkley remains undeterred by age and injury.
presence
▪
Often the mere presence of the Helblaster is enough to make the enemy think twice about going somewhere.
▪
It was as if the mere presence of the prize made each man doubt his own wisdom.
▪
Effect Although Cantona watched the game from the second row of the directors' box, his mere presence had an effect.
▪
The mere presence of tubes turned the MITerminator 3 cables to a brittle mess.
▪
Hewett felt their mere presence would calm matters down.
▪
The mere presence of the letter would be something to get her through the morning.
▪
The mere presence of an object on museum premises entails some form of associated documentation.
▪
It was rumoured that they had already burned farms in other villages, so their mere presence filled the Fontanellatesi with terror.
sight
▪
Why should she be troubled by the mere sight of him?
▪
Andrew looked down at her, healed by the mere sight of her.
▪
They didn't come haring towards them as if the mere sight of them was the best thing that had happened all day.
▪
The mere sight of him was enough to make McAllister's toes curl.
thought
▪
The mere thought brought a tremor to her legs.
▪
Shocked by the mere thought , I suddenly feel strangely benign toward the animals that I love so dearly to eat.
▪
The mere thought shocked her and she jerked back.
▪
To Soo-Il, the mere thought of bringing the Beautiful One into the Kang home was immensely pleasing.
▪
Spencer lifted his arms in a flamboyant gesture and Emily felt physically sick at the mere thought of marrying him.
▪
The mere thought gave Masklin nightmares.
▪
The mere thought of Piers no longer being around made her feel horribly empty and desolate.
▪
The mere thought of Madcap Agnew - a name rarely mentioned in the Hall - appeared to stultify him.
word
▪
Yet body language often tells us so much more than mere words .
▪
No transport, today, into a realm beyond mere words .
▪
In any case, the mere word was anathema to her, she thought fiercely.
▪
I claim a man should be known by his deeds and not by mere words .
▪
All this may seem mere words , but words and their meaning are at the heart of the planning process.
▪
While the text may be mere words on a page the discourse takes on a deeper and more determinative role.
▪
All this conveyed a passion and conviction mere words could not express.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
lesser/ordinary/mere mortals
▪
A penchant for setting oneself apart and above mere mortals .
▪
And together we were emphatically co-operative that neighbouring forces were populated by lesser mortals .
▪
However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us ordinary mortals .
▪
Lords, ladies, dukes and duchesses figure prominently among the names as well as more ordinary mortals of obviously substantial means.
▪
Miracles can be worked by Him alone, although mere mortals may entreat Him by prayer to perform them on their behalf.
▪
She held herself raised by her great prosperity above all that ordinary mortals fear and reverence.
▪
This increased exposure allows them to exploit their advantages over more ordinary mortals more easily than their predecessors could.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪
Admission costs a mere $5 for adults, and only $1 for children.
▪
How can you expect him to understand? He's a mere child.
▪
Most of the soldiers were mere boys.
▪
Stock prices dropped at the merest rumor of a company takeover.
▪
The mere mention of Ronan's name made her heart beat faster.
▪
The mere thought of drinking whiskey makes me feel sick.
▪
There have been reports that she is going to resign, but it's mere speculation at the moment.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
His own, over the Ohio River at Wheeling, lasted a mere five.
▪
I can hardly see that a mere frigate is going to inconvenience you to all that extent.
▪
If so, it is perhaps surprising that a threat of a mere breach of contract should give rise to liability.
▪
In December he found Herbie Roberts, 21, an amateur wing-half from Oswestry, who cost a mere £200.
▪
It was clearly something more than a mere mortal storm and in point of fact Juno was back of it.
▪
Jobs requiring mere brawn are dwindling, replaced by lower-paid jobs requiring skill, education and a high degree of interpersonal polish.
▪
Most of the opponents of enclosure at Nottingham were not, therefore, mere villains.
▪
Yet some things that look like cynicism may be mere ineptness.
II. noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪
I followed a path to the hide by the mere .
▪
Next we have fisheries, such as the Cheshire meres, which are ideal environments for producing really big bream.
▪
On several of the meres I fish I can tell to within a few minutes when I will get bites.
▪
Some of the most famous big bream waters in Britain are the Cheshire and Shropshire meres.
▪
There is even a bird-enticing mere built especially for them, with islands, and high banks to keep out unwanted humans.