Etymologically
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mæd

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Pronunciation

Forms

mǣd f (nominative plural mǣdwa)[1] Oblique cases also mǣdwe; a weak mǣdwe and mǣdwa occur beside it.[2] Anglian and Kentish mēd.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *mādu, from Proto-Germanic *mēdwō (“meadow”).[1] Kroonen derives it, with Old Frisian mēde and Old Dutch māda (“pasture, meadow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂meh₁-tueh₂-, and Middle High German mate and German Matte from the zero grade of the same noun; both go back to an ablauting noun formed to Proto-Indo-European *h₂meh₁- (“to mow”).[4] It belongs with mǣþ (“mowing, mown grass”) and with the verb māwan (“to mow”).[4] Köbler also starts from a root “to mow”.[5] Wiktionary compares Latin metō (“to reap, mow”).[1]

It is a heavy-stemmed feminine wō-stem, like lǣs.[6] As in dǣd, Proto-West Germanic /ā/ appears as ⟨ǣ⟩ in West Saxon and as ⟨ē⟩ in Anglian.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in King Alfred's grant of 898 to his ealdorman Sighelm of land at Farleigh in Kent, with vi æceres mæde “six acres of meadow” belonging to it.[8][9] The grant survives in a single sheet of about 900;[8] Stevenson thought its language later than Alfred's time, while Whitelock held it authentic.[8] The Old English Orosius describes the Gauls killing in Rome gelice & mon mæd mawe “just as one mows a meadow”.[10][9]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller translate it “mead, meadow”, and Ælfric's Glossary renders Latin pratum with it.[2] Most of the record is in the charters, where meadows are counted in acres, named after their owners and used as marks in the bounds.[2][11][12] In a grant of 940 for Oswaldingtun, surviving as an original, seo mæd æt brunes forda is one of the pieces of land that go with the estate.[13][9]

The nominative gave Middle English mede, English mead, and the oblique mǣdwe gave Middle English medwe, English meadow;[3][14] Etymonline glosses the word as land under grass that was mown for hay.[3][14]

Timeline

  • 898 (single sheet of s. ix/x) – vi æceres mæde in Alfred's grant of Farleigh, Kent.[8][9]
  • s. x¹ or x²/⁴ – mon mæd mawe in the Old English Orosius.[10][9]
  • 940 – seo mæd æt brunes forda in an original grant for Oswaldingtun.[13][9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. a meadow, pasture.[2][5][12]
  2. meadow-land, reckoned in acres in grants.[11]

Word family

  • wudumǣd
  • gerēfmǣd

Descendants

  • Middle English mede (→ English mead; English meadow; Scots meeda)[1]

Usage notes

Not to be confused with mēd (“reward”), which has a separate source and shares the Anglian spelling mēd.[15][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 654
  3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 367
  5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. mǣd
  6. ^ Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 2.53
  7. ^ Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 287
  8. ^ a b c d The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 350
  9. ^ a b c d e f Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
  10. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 249
  11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 626
  12. ^ a b LangScape: The Language of Landscape: Reading the Anglo-Saxon Countryside, King's College London, langscape.org.uk
  13. ^ a b The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 464
  14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. mēd
  16. ^ Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. mēd