Middle English had a long close front vowel /iː/, and two long mid front vowels: the

close-mid /eː/ and

the open-mid /ɛː/. The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings ⟨i⟩, ⟨ee⟩ and ⟨ea⟩
respectively, but other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern
English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly.

The /iː/ and /eː/ generally corresponded to similar Old English vowels, and /ɛː/ came from Old
English /æː/ or /æːɑ̯ /. For other possible histories, see English historical vowel correspondences. In
particular, the long vowels sometimes arose from short vowels by Middle English open syllable
lengthening or other processes. For example, team comes from an originally-long Old English vowel, and
eat comes from an originally-short vowel that underwent lengthening. The distinction between both
groups of words is still preserved in a few dialects, as is noted in the following section.

Middle English /ɛː/ was shortened in certain words. Both long and short forms of such words often
existed alongside each other during Middle English. In Modern English the short form has generally
become standard, but the spelling ⟨ea⟩ reflects the formerly-longer pronunciation.[1] The words that
were affected include several ending in d, such as bread, head, spread, and various others including
breath, weather, and threat. For example, bread was /brɛːd/ in earlier Middle English, but came to be
shortened and rhymed with bed.

During the Great Vowel Shift, the normal outcome of /iː/ was a diphthong, which developed into
Modern English /aɪ/, as in mine and find. Meanwhile, /eː/ became /iː/, as in feed, and /ɛː/ of words like
meat became /eː/, which later merged with /iː/ in nearly all dialects, as is described in the following
section.

Meet–meat merger

The meet–meat merger or the fleece merger is the merger of the Early Modern English vowel /eː/ (as in
meat) into the vowel /iː/ (as in meet).[2][3] The merger was complete in standard accents of English by
about 1700.[4]

As noted in the previous section, the Early Modern/New English (ENE) vowel /eː/ developed from
Middle English /ɛː/ via the Great Vowel Shift, and ENE /iː/ was usually the result of Middle English /eː/
(the effect in both cases was a raising of the vowel). The merger saw ENE /eː/ raised further to become
identical to /iː/ and so Middle English /ɛː/ and /eː/ have become /iː/ in standard Modern English, and
meat and meet are now homophones. The merger did not affect the words in which /ɛː/ had undergone
shortening (see section above), and a handful of other words (such as break, steak, great) also escaped
the merger in the standard accents and so acquired the same vowel as brake, stake, grate. Hence, the
words meat, threat (which was shortened), and great now have three different vowels although all three
words once rhymed.
The merger results in the FLEECE lexical set, as defined by John Wells. Words in the set that had ENE /iː/
(Middle English /eː/) are mostly spelled ⟨ee⟩ (meet, green, etc.), with a single ⟨e⟩ in monosyllables (be,
me) or followed by a single consonant and a vowel letter (these, Peter), sometimes ⟨ie⟩ or ⟨ei⟩ (believe,
ceiling), or irregularly (key, people). Most of those that had ENE /eː/ (Middle English /ɛː/) are spelled
⟨ea⟩ (meat, team, eat, etc.), but some borrowed words have a single ⟨e⟩ (legal, decent, complete), ⟨ei⟩,
or otherwise (receive, seize, phoenix, quay). There are also some loanwords in which /iː/ is spelled ⟨i⟩
(police, machine, ski), most of which entered the language later.[5]

There are still some dialects in the British Isles that do not have the merger. Some speakers in Northern
England have /iː/ or /əɪ/ in the first group of words (those that had ENE /iː/, like meet), but /ɪə/ in the
second group (those that had ENE /eː/, like meat). In Staffordshire, the distinction might rather be
between /ɛi/ in the first group and /iː/ in the second group. In some (particularly rural and lower-class)
varieties of Irish English, the first group has /i/, and the second preserves /eː/. A similar contrast has
been reported in parts of Southern and Western England, but it is now rarely encountered there.[6]

In some Yorkshire dialects, an additional distinction may be preserved within the meat set. Words that
originally had long vowels, such as team and cream (which come from Old English tēam and Old French
creme), may have /ɪə/, and those that had an original short vowel, which underwent open syllable
lengthening in Middle English (see previous section), like eat and meat (from Old English etan and
mete), have a sound resembling /ɛɪ/, similar to the sound that is heard in some dialects in words like
eight and weight that lost a velar fricative).[3]

In Alexander's book (2001)[2] about the traditional Sheffield dialect, the spelling "eigh" is used for the
vowel of eat and meat, but "eea" is used for the vowel of team and cream. However, a 1999 survey in
Sheffield found the /ɛɪ/ pronunciation to be almost extinct there.[7]

Changes before /r/ and /ə/

In certain accents, when the FLEECE vowel was followed by /r/, it acquired a laxer pronunciation. In
General American, words like near and beer now have the sequence /ir/, and nearer rhymes with mirror
(the mirror–nearer merger). In Received Pronunciation, a diphthong /ɪə/ has developed (and by non-
rhoticity, the /r/ is generally lost, unless there is another vowel after it), so beer and near are /bɪə/
and /nɪə/, and nearer (with /ɪə/) remains distinct from mirror (with /ɪ/). Several pronunciations are
found in other accents, but outside North America, the nearer–mirror opposition is always preserved.
For example, some conservative accents in Northern England have the sequence /iːə/ in words like near,
with the schwa disappearing before a pronounced /r/, as in serious.[8]
Another development is that bisyllabic /iːə/ may become smoothed to the diphthong [ɪə] (with the
change being phonemic in non-rhotic dialects, so /ɪə/) in certain words, which leads to pronunciations
like [ˈvɪəkəl], [ˈθɪətə] and [aɪˈdɪə] for vehicle, theatre/theater and idea, respectively. That is not
restricted to any variety of English. It happens in both British English and (less noticeably or often)
American English as well as other varieties although it is far more common for Britons. The words that
have [ɪə] may vary depending on dialect. Dialects that have the smoothing usually also have the
diphthong [ɪə] in words like beer, deer, and fear, and the smoothing causes idea, Korea, etc. to rhyme
with those words.[9]

Other changes

In Geordie, the FLEECE vowel undergoes an allophonic split, with the monophthong [iː] being used in
morphologically-closed syllables (as in freeze [fɹiːz]) and the diphthong [ei] being used in
morphologically-open syllables not only word-finally (as in free [fɹei]) but also word-internally at the end
of a morpheme (as in frees [fɹeiz]).[10][11]

Most dialects of English turn /iː/ into a diphthong, and the monophthongal [iː] is in free variation with
the diphthongal [ɪi ~ əi] (with the former diphthong being the same as Geordie [ei], the only difference
lying in the transcription), particularly word-internally. However, word-finally, diphthongs are more
common.

Compare the identical development of the close back GOOSE vowel.