Etymology

malt

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Today it means: Malted grain (sprouted grain) (usually barley), used in brewing and otherwise. Full definition →

Middle English malt ← Old English mealt ← Proto-West Germanic *malt
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*meld-
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*maltą“malt”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · derived from*malt
  4. Old English · derived frommealt
  5. Middle English · derived frommalt
  6. English todaymalt

From Middle English malt, from Old English mealt, from Proto-West Germanic *malt, from Proto-Germanic *maltą (“malt”), from *maltaz (“soft; nesh; weak; squashy; melting”), from Proto-Indo-European *meld-, *mled- (“to crush; grind; make weak”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Moalt (“malt”), Dutch mout (“malt”), German Malz (“malt”), Swedish malt (“malt”), Old Church Slavonic младъ (mladŭ, “tender; young”), Russian молодой (molodoj, “young; fresh; new”). The Proto-Germanic noun was borrowed into Proto-Slavic as *malta; compare Ukrainian мо́лот (mólot), Czech mláto. More at melt.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.