mead

• enPR: mēd, IPA^(key): /miːd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːd
• Homophone: meed

From Middle English mede, from Old English medu, from Proto-West Germanic *medu, from Proto-Germanic *meduz, from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (“honey; honey wine”).

Cognate with Ancient Greek μέθυ (méthu) (whence English methyl), Lithuanian medùs, Old Church Slavonic медъ (medŭ, “honey”), Persian می (mey), Sanskrit मधु (mádhu), Welsh medd, Finnish mesi, Chinese 蜜 (mì).

mead (usually uncountable, plural meads)

2. (alcoholic beverages) An alcoholic drink fermented from honey and water.
   • 1837, L E L, chapter IV, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. , volume I, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 47:

     "Just come in," said Mrs. Churchill, "and take one glass of my mead." / "No—not even such a golden promise tempts me. I am afraid that Lord Marchmont will be at home before me—and he is not yet accustomed to be kept waiting."

   • 2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 131:

     No one, then or now, wanted to drink the mead that came out of Odin's arse.

3. (US) A drink composed of syrup of sarsaparilla or other flavouring extract, and water, and sometimes charged with carbon dioxide.

• meath, meathe, meeth (all obsolete)

• bragget (“drink made from ale, honey & spices”)
• ambrosia (noun)
• mead on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Middle English mede (“meadow”), from Old English mǣd. Cognate with West Frisian miede, Mede, German Low German Meed, Dutch made.

mead (plural meads)

1. (poetic) A meadow.
   • a. 1722, Matthew Prior, “Dorinda”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 693:

     Farewel ye crystal streams, that pass / Thro’ fragrant meads of verdant grass:

   • c. 1817, John Keats, Hither, hither, love -:

     Hither, hither, love — / ‘Tis a shady mead — / Hither, hither, love! / Let us feed and feed!

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Day-Dream. Moral.”, in Poems. , volume II, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, page 160:

     But any man that walks the mead, / In bud, or blade, or bloom, may find, / According as his humours lead, / A meaning suited to his mind.

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, Canto XXVIII, page 45:

     Four voices of four hamlets round, / From far and near, on mead and moor, / Swell out and fail, as if a door / Were shut between me and the sound […]

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented , volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., , →OCLC:

     'We must overhaul that mead,' he resumed; 'this mustn't continny!'

   • 1920, H. P. Lovecraft, The Doom that Came to Sarnath:

     There ran little streams over bright pebbles, dividing meads of green and gardens of many hues, [...].

• lot mead
• Temple Meads
• Thamesmead

• ADEM, ADME, Adem, Dame, Edam, MEDA, dame, made

mead

1. second-person plural imperative of mear

From Middle English mede, from Old English mǣd.

• IPA^(key): /miːd/
• Homophone: mydhe

mead

1. meadow

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 56