mel

Forms

mel m (countable and uncountable, plural méis or meles)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling mell in the 15th century.^[2] The plural is méis or meles;^[1][3][4] Feijó wrote in 1734 that the word was not used in the plural, and that it would be méis.^[1][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *melem, from Latin mel (“honey”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mel in the oldest texts.^[1][2][5] The Vulgar Latin form added a final -e and took a masculine or feminine gender in place of the Latin neuter.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician mel, Spanish miel, Catalan mel, French miel, Italian miele and Romanian miere.^[6][1]

The Latin word goes back to *meli and Proto-Indo-European *mel-it (“honey”), with a suffix found in names of foods; it is related to Ancient Greek μέλι (méli), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌻𐌹𐌸 (miliþ) and Old Irish mil.^[7][1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology has the word in a charter of 1257, et de mel et de leguma “and of honey and of vegetables”;^[8][2] Houaiss's first date, 1269, comes from Cunha's medieval index.^[8][2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria already use it figuratively, of something mais doce ca mel “sweeter than honey”, and tell of a hive kept por aver muito mel “to have plenty of honey”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Beside honey itself the word soon named sweetness of speech and manner, as in the Cantigas.^[8][2] In Brazil it was applied to the syrup that drains from the sugar moulds in the mills: Morais records this in 1789, together with mel de pau, the honey of wild bees in hollow trees, and the phrase pôr mel pelos beiços a alguém “to put honey on someone's lips”, that is, to win someone over in order to deceive.^[9] North-eastern Brazil has many compounds for the stages of cane syrup (mel de engenho, mel de furo, mel de tanque), and there mel can also mean blood.^[2][10] In Cape Verde, Madeira and São Tomé the word means molasses.^[1]

Lua de mel “honeymoon” is the first days of a marriage.^[11]

Timeline

• 1257 – de mel in a charter.^[8]
• 1269 – Houaiss's first date, from Cunha's medieval index.^[2]
• 13th century, second half – mais doce ca mel in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[8]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 15th century – the spelling mell.^[2]
• 1562 – Cardoso's Latin–Portuguese dictionary glosses Latin mel as ho mel.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives the word from Greek and discusses how bees make honey.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais records the Brazilian sense “sugar syrup” and mel de pau.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. honey, the sweet thick fluid that bees make from the nectar of flowers: Pôs uma colher de mel no chá.^[2][3][1]
2. A similar substance made by other insects.^[2]
3. A very sweet juice obtained from certain fruits and plants.^[2][3]
4. (Brazil, north-east) Thick sugar-cane syrup, melado;^[2][1][10] (Cape Verde, Madeira, São Tomé) molasses.^[2][1][10]
5. (figurative) Great sweetness or gentleness;^[2][3] (Brazil, pejorative) affected sweetness, hypocrisy.^[2][3]
6. (Brazil, north-east, figurative) blood.^[2]

Word family

• melaço
• melado
• melar
• meloso
• papa-mel

Related words

• Latin mel
• Spanish miel

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a physics term mel (plural mels), a unit of perceived pitch equal to a thousandth of the pitch of a 1,000 Hz tone 40 dB above the threshold of hearing;^[2][3][15] Houaiss explains it as a shortening of the English word melody, while Michaelis derives it from the Greek μέλος (mélos, “song”).^[2][3][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mel
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mel
4. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mel
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mel
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5469
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. mel
9. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 70
10. ^ a b c Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. mel
11. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. mel
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mel
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1562), Dictionarium juventuti studiosae admodum frugiferum, Coimbra: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mel
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mel
15. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. mel