Etymology

meadow

mead·ow
M3E1A1D2O1W4

Today it means: A field or pasture; a piece of land either intentionally cultivated with grass or (especially) naturally covered with grass, especially one that is intended to be mown for hay or to be grazed. Full definition →

Middle English medowe ← Old English mǣdwe ← Proto-Germanic *mēdwō
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*h₂met-“to mow, reap”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*mēdwō
  3. Old English · inherited frommǣdwe
  4. Middle English · inherited frommedowe
  5. English todaymeadow

From Middle English medowe, medewe, medwe (also mede > Modern English mead), from Old English mǣdwe, inflected form of mǣd (see mead), from Proto-Germanic *mēdwō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂met- (“to mow, reap”), enlargement of *h₂meh₁-. Related to mead (“meadow”) and to math (“mowed result or area”). More at mow. Cognates Cognate with Yola mead (“meadow”), Saterland Frisian Mäid (“meadow”), West Frisian miede (“meadow”), Dutch made (“hayland, meadow”), German Matte (“meadow”); also Cornish mysi (“to harvest; to mow”), Welsh medi (“to reap”), Latin metō (“to harvest, reap; to cut; to mow”), Ancient Greek ἄμητος (ámētos, “harvest”).

Words from the same roots

Old Englishmǣdwe all →

Meadowcroft

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.