meak dial.
(miːk)
Also 5 meeke, meyke, 6 meake, 7, 9 meag, 8–9 make.
An implement with a long handle and crooked iron or blade used to pull up or cut down peas, bracken, reeds, etc. Also pea-meak (see pea1 7), pease-meak (see pease n. 5).
| 1478 Maldon (Essex) Court Rolls Bundle 50 No. 10v, Holwell come out with a wepen called a meyke. 1481–90 Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.) 113, I paid Gravely for vj. meekes. 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 37 A meake for the pease, and to swinge vp the brake. 1674 Ray Collect. Words 71 A Meag or Meak, a Pease-hook. 1865 W. White Eastern Eng. I. vii. 100 We..cuts the reeds down as deep as we can with a make, a kind o' short-bladed, long-handled scythe. 1895 P. H. Emerson Birds, etc. Norf. Broadland 74 Disturbed by meak or crome that drags forth the lamb's-tail. |
Hence meak v., trans. to cut with a meak. dial.
| absol. 1892 P. H. Emerson Son of Fens xiii. 99 Which are you going to do—meag or mow? Well, we'd better meag, now the water is up. |