(now literary, archaic) A payment or recompense made for services rendered or in recognition of some achievement; reward; award.
1880, translation by Richard Francis Burton of Os Lusiadas, Canto IX, stanza 93 by Luís de Camões
Better to merit and the meed to miss,
than, lacking merit, every meed possess.
A gift; bribe.
(dated) Merit; worth.
In any case, his life would be in ignominy and would be brief, and he would have lost irretrievably the meed of valour.