2674: Meadow and Mow: How Spring & Sweetness are Related

The word 'mead' as in fermented honey, and a 'meadow' are related. There is an older form of meadow as 'mead' too such as in the Middle English poem "Sumer is Icumen in" that has the line

Groweþ sed (grows seed)

and bloweþ med (and the meadow blooms)

As it happens, both of those words ultimately are from the same root, but there are other words too like the Russian word for 'bear', медведь (medved), the word 'mow' in English, as well as the German 'Matte' (pasture) and Latin 'metere' (to harvest). The root in Proto-Indo-European related to growth, blossoming, and eventually sweetness. Many languages, especially of the ancient world, had related words meaning 'sweet wine', and eventually that came to mean 'drunk'. Even the name 'Maeve' comes from the same root as 'mead', from the Middle Irish 'medb' from the root meaning 'sweet' but in this case it means literally 'intoxicating'.