Immediately after the Great Vowel Shift, the vowels of meet and meat were different, but they are merged in Modern English, and both words are pronounced as .

However, during the 16th and the 17th centuries, there were many different mergers, and some mergers can be seen in individual Modern English words like great, which is pronounced with the vowel as in mate rather than the vowel as in meat.

This is a simplified picture of the changes that happened between late Middle English (late ME), Early Modern English

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