Definition of "meaner"

Prince John: "Your foe has bloodied you, sir knight. Will you concede defeat? You fight too well to die so mean a death. Will you not throw in your lot with me instead? / Ivanhoe: "That would be an even meaner death, Your Grace."

Ivanhoe (1952 film)

By his acts of meaning, and those of other individual meaners, the social reality is created, maintained in good order, and continuously shaped and modified.

2006, M.A.K. Halliday, Jonathan Webster, Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse, page 50