Several beverages and culinary concoctions derive their names from meli, the Greek word for honey, including hydromel, acetomel, and oenomel. Hydromel, as might be guessed from the first half of the word, is a beverage made by mixing honey with water. Likewise, oenomel is a drink made by mixing honey with wine (in Greek, oinos means wine), while acetomel is a pickling fluid made by combining honey with vinegar (in Latin, acetum means vinegar). When the first of these concoctions, hydromel, is allowed to ferment and become alcoholic, it is called mead, a word that evolved from the Old English meodu; in turn, meodu developed from an Indo-European source, pronounced something like medhu, that meant sweet drink. This same Indo-European source also evolved into another Greek word for wine, methu, from which English formed the word methyl as in methyl alcohol. When heavily spiced, mead is called metheglin, a word resembling the Greek methu, but in no way related. Instead, English acquired the word metheglin from Welsh in the early sixteenth century, the Welsh having invented the word by combining their words meddyg, meaning healing, and llyn, meaning liquor; metheglin is therefore a compound meaning healing liquor. Incidentally, the first part of this Welsh compound is not really a native Welsh word; instead, meddyg is a Welsh adaptation of the Latin medicus, meaning physician. In contrast, the second part of the compound—the llyn part—really is a native Welsh word: it derives from the same source as lynne, meaning pool of liquid, a word best known in compounds such as Dublin and Brooklyn, and which also became Lynne, a woman’s name.
A honey drink.
A blend of honey, herbs, spices, and water, which was once fermented in antiquity to create mead.
Metheglin is a drink made of honey and water, flavored with herbs and spices. When fermented, it becomes mead.