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A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

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First published 1971 (DOST Vol. IV).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Mais(e, n.¹ Also: mays(e, maiz, mas, maze, mese, meas(s. [ME. mese measure of copper (1376), e.m.E. meise measure of herrings (1469), mayse (1535), maze etc., med. L. (Eng.) meisa (1205) (Baxter & Johnson): cf. MDu., MLG. mese, meise id., OF. meise, maise, moise, id., also ON. meis-s box, basket, OHG. meisa bundle, small box, MHG. meise large basket, measure for herrings.] A measure of quantity. a. Chiefly of fish.(1) Appar. only in the south, espec. the south-west, chiefly of herring, also of mackerel, equivalent to five hundred, which in later use is sometimes the long hundred of 120 (as Hundreth n. 5, etc.).(2) In Orkney, of skrae-fish.(1) 1327 Exch. R. I. 69.
[Account of Ayr:] Pro quinque maysis allecum … x s. 1329 Ib. 162.
[Ayr:] Et pro xiiij^m ix^c lx allecibus … sub precio cuiuslibet mayse quatuor solidorum, cxix s. vij d. 1374 Coldingham Priory lxxvi.
xiij mayse de alecibus sore 1402 Exch. R. III. 557.
[Crail:] Pro empcione dimidii mayse allecum ad usum regis … xxij d. 1497 Treas. Acc. I. 382.
For foure mais of hering; for ilk mais x s. 1524–5 Wigtownsh. Chart. 64.
Tua mais macrellis price therof ii li. x s. 1533 Wigtown B. Ct. 293 a. (Wigtownshire); 1556 Reg. Great S. 251/1. (Herring); 1561–2 Dumfries B. Ct. 45 b; 1585–6 Waus Corr. 345; 1607 Kirkcudbr. B. Rec. II. 14. 1644 Lochwinnoch Par. 169.
Half a mais herring 1673 Reg. Privy C. 3 Ser. IV. 40.
The saides Lordis … ordaines a measur of maiz and another of half maiz to be made, the haill maiz to contain 500 and the half maiz to contain 260 herringes(b) 1485 Lennox Mun. 126.
In lyk wys fyfty mas of se saltyt hering, and ten mas of red hering, to be deliueryt in Renfrew 1684 Symson Descr. Galloway 45.
Each maze contains 500, at six score to the hundred a 1710 Lochwinnoch Par. 5.
The herrings are sold by the fishers to the coopers … and packers … by the maze, which contains 500(c) 1597 Skene Verb. S. s.v. Mese.
Mese of herring conteinis fiue hundreth, … quhilk is the halfe of ane thousand(2) 1561 Craven Ch. in Orkney II. 14.
Aucht mais of scrafish for the third of the fisch of the said bishoprick 1595 Orkney Rentals ii. 105.
Set in few … for payment yeirlie of 62 li. 6 s. 8 d., 24 cunningis and 24 mais of scra 1600 Reg. Great S. 352/1. 1627 Orkney Rentals iii. 56.
The viccarag … payand … twa meas and halff of dry screa with owl teind, boit teind, lamb teind

b. Of other things. — c1420 Wynt. iv. 1567 (W).
Off gold ryngis … Thre mais [R. moys], that wes thre bollis met