Meed vs Heed - What's the difference?
meed | heed |
A payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward, deserts; award.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.i:
*
A gift; bribe.
(obsolete) Merit or desert; worth.
* (and other bibliographic details) (Shakespeare)
Careful attention.
* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
To mind; to regard with care; to take notice of; to attend to; to observe.
* Dryden
* 2013 September 23, Masha Gessen, "
(archaic) To pay attention, care.
As nouns the difference between meed and heed
is that meed is a payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward, deserts; award while heed is heathen, pagan or heed can be heath.As a verb meed
is to reward; bribe.meed
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) meede, mede, from (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- For well she wist, as true it was indeed, / That her liues Lord and patrone of her health / Right well deserued as his duefull meed , / Her loue, her seruice, and her vtmost wealth.
- My meed hath got me fame.
Quotations
* (English Citations of "meed")Derived terms
* (l)Etymology 2
From (etyl) meden, from (etyl) *.Anagrams
* * * ----heed
English
Noun
(-)- Then for a few minutes I did not pay much heed to what was said, being terribly straitened for room, and cramped with pain from lying so long in one place.
Usage notes
* Often used with give, pay or take.Synonyms
* (careful attention) attention, notice, observation, regardVerb
(en verb)- With pleasure Argus the musician heeds .
Life in a Russian Prison," New York Times (retrieved 24 September 2013):
- Tolokonnikova not only tried to adjust to life in the penal colony but she even tried to heed the criticism levied at her by colony representatives during a parole hearing.