mead

Pronunciation

• /miːd/^[1]

mead¹ fermented honey drink

Etymology

The drink is inherited from Middle English mede,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English medu, also meodu,^[4][5][6][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *meduz,^[3][8][6][9] from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“honey; honey wine”).^[1][10][3] It is cognate with Old Norse mjǫðr,^[11][10] Old Frisian mede,^[11][12] Middle Dutch mede,^[11][6] Old High German metu,^[11][2] German Met,^[11][8] Dutch mede (also mee),^[11][12] Swedish mjöd and Danish mjød.^[11][8] A Gothic form is known only from the Greek transcription Ancient Greek μέδος (médos), which Priscus gave as the name of a drink served instead of wine at the Hunnish court in 448.^[11][13] Outside Germanic the same Indo-European word gave Sanskrit मधु (mádhu, “honey, sweet drink”),^[11][1][12] Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu, “wine”),^[11][8][6] Old Irish mid (“mead”), Welsh medd,^[11][12][3] Old Church Slavonic медъ (medŭ, “honey, mead”)^[11][1] and Lithuanian medùs (“honey”).^[12][1] The OED suggests that it was first an adjective meaning "sweet" used as a noun, comparing the use of the Sanskrit word as an adjective.^[11] In Proto-Germanic the ordinary word for honey was a different one, Proto-Germanic *hunangą, the source of honey.^[10][14] The Germanic word was taken up as Late Latin medus in the 6th century.^[11] It is unrelated to metheglin, a borrowing from Welsh with which it was sometimes confused.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

An alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water: about 725, in Beowulf,^[12] and in the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories calls mead the oldest alcoholic drink of the peoples living north of the lands of the vine, and recalls the thanes of Beowulf drinking from mead-cups on the mead-bench of the mead-hall.^[14] Etymonline calls it a favourite drink of England in the Middle Ages;^[3] Chaucer used it four times, as mede and as meeth, the latter in "hornes ful of meeth".^[15][3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a drink made of water and honey.^[16] Milton used the word in 1667 for any sweet drink, a poetic sense that did not last,^[11] and in the 19th-century United States mead was the name of several manufactured drinks, especially a sweet carbonated one sometimes flavoured with sarsaparilla (1824).^[11][1] In Cheshire, Lincolnshire and the West Country a honey drink made from the washings of the honeycomb was called mead, or meath and meth.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English medu, in Beowulf.^[12]
• c. 1150 – Middle English mede.^[12]
• 1667 – any sweet drink (Milton; obsolete).^[11]
• 1824 – in the United States, a sweet carbonated drink.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water, sometimes with malt, yeast or spices added: They toasted the bride with cups of spiced mead.^[18][2][11]

mead² meadow

Etymology

The meadow is inherited from Middle English mede,^[2][3][19] inherited from Old English mǣd, Anglian and Kentish mēd,^[3][19][5] inherited from Proto-Germanic *mēdwō,^[20] from Proto-Indo-European *mē- (“to cut down grass or grain”),^[3][4] the root of mow.^[11][21][20] It is cognate with Old Frisian mēde, Middle Dutch māde and Middle Low German māde, all meaning "meadow",^[11][3] and, with a different ablaut grade, with Old High German mato- (in a word for grasshopper) and German Matte (“meadow”).^[11][3][13] Old English also had mǣþ (“harvest, crop”);^[3] the OED compares math, as in aftermath.^[11] The Old English noun dropped its w in the nominative singular but kept it in the other cases, such as mǣdwe, which gave meadow.^[11][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A meadow: first in the place name Medeshamsted, the Old English name of Peterborough, about 737 in Bede's Ecclesiastical History,^[12] and as a word before 901.^[12] The OED's first example is a charter of Archbishop Oswald.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English mede meant a meadow, a clearing or open field, or meadowland in general.^[19] The wider sense "grassland, pasture" died out after 1670,^[11][5] and the word is now archaic or poetic,^[2][3][18] though it lived on in dialect for a meadow or field from Scotland and Ireland to Kent, Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset.^[17][5]

Timeline

• c. 737 – in the place name Medeshamsted (Peterborough).^[12]
• before 901 – Old English mǣd.^[12]
• c. 1150 – Middle English mede.^[12]
• 1670 – last record of the sense "grassland, pasture".^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic or poetic) A meadow.^[2][18][5]

Related words

• amethyst
• methane
• methyl
• meadow
• mow
• aftermath
• metheglin
• honey
• meed

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ 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)
20. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
21. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press