meadow

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English medwe, also medewe and medou,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English mǣdwe, the form of the oblique cases of mǣd (“meadow”), which gave mead².^{[4][5][2][6][7]} The OED adds that in Old English mǣdwe was partly a weak noun derived from mǣd, and that in Middle English the oblique forms were generalized.^[8] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *mēdwō,^[5][6][7][9] from Proto-Indo-European *mētwá (“mown land”),^[7][3] a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *mē- (“to mow, cut down grass”).^[5][4][7] Cognates are Old Frisian mēde, Middle Low German māde, Middle Dutch māde, Dutch made, Middle High German mate and German Matte (“meadow”);^[3][5][10] it is related to mǣþ (“a mowing, crop of hay”) and māwan (“to mow”), the source of mow.^[3][10][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Land covered with grass that is mown for hay: Barnhart finds mǣdwe in 777, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,^[3] and the OED quotes an Old English charter.^[8] Etymonline gives "a low, level tract of land under grass, pasture" as the Old English sense, and "land mown for hay" as the original one.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Etymologically a meadow is "mown land".^[7] In Middle English it was a field kept for hay, meadowland in general, or a grassy field for pasture.^[2] The Middle English forms were medewe (probably before 1200, in Layamon), medwe (about 1300) and medow (before 1338, in Mannyng); Barnhart says the spelling meadow is a partial revival of the Old English one, first found in Shakespeare's plays.^[3] Chaucer used medewe four times.^[11] In North America from 1563 the word was used for a tract of uncultivated, often marshy grassland along a river or near the sea.^[8][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as ground somewhat watery, not ploughed but covered with grass and flowers.^[13] In the 19th century it was extended to an area of sea ice where seals gather (1850, chiefly Newfoundland) and to an area of sea rich in small organisms where whales feed (1851, in Melville's Moby-Dick).^[8] In the dialects of Yorkshire and other northern counties a meadow was a field kept for hay as opposed to pasture.^[14] The verb, to use land as meadow, is recorded from 1768.^[8]

Timeline

• 777 – mǣdwe, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.^[3]
• before 1200 – Middle English medewe, in Layamon.^[3]
• before 1400 – land used as meadow.^[8]
• 1557 – hay mown from a meadow (rare).^[8]
• 1563 – chiefly North American, uncultivated grassland along a river or near the sea.^[8]
• 1611 – meadowlark.^[3]
• 1653 – meadowland.^[3]
• 1768 – verb, to use land as meadow.^[8]
• 1850 – an area of sea ice where seals gather.^[8]
• 1851 – an area of sea rich in food for whales or fish.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A field of grass, especially one mown for hay or used for pasture: Cows were grazing in the meadow.^[15][12][8]
2. A low-lying piece of grassland, often moist, near a river or stream.^[15][12][8]
3. An area of sea rich in seaweed or small organisms, where fish or whales feed.^[8]

Verb

1. To turn land into grassland or use it for hay.^[12][8]

Word family

• meadowy
• meadowless
• meadowfoam
• meadowland
• meadowlark
• meadowsweet

Related words

• mead
• mow
• aftermath

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ 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)
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins