mel

• IPA^(key): /mɛl/
• Rhymes: -ɛl
• Homophones: Mel, mell

Shortening of melody.

mel (plural mels)

1. (psychoacoustics) A unit of pitch on a scale of pitches perceived by listeners to be equally spaced from one another.

• Mel scale on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Latin mel (“honey”).

mel (uncountable)

1. Honey, when used as an ingredient in cosmetic products.

• EML, Elm, L.E.M., LEM, Lem, MLE, elm

Borrowed through Vulgar Latin from Latin milium.

mel m (definite meli)

1. millet

From Proto-Celtic *meli (“honey”) (compare Welsh mêl, Old Irish mil), from Proto-Indo-European *mélid, whence also Latin mel (“honey”).

• IPA^(key): /mɛl/

mel m

1. honey

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈmɛl]

• Audio (Catalonia)

  (file)

Inherited from Vulgar Latin *melem m or f, from Latin mel n.

mel f (plural mels)

1. honey

Inherited from Late Latin mēlum, variant of mālum (“apple”).

mel m (plural mels)

1. (Balearic, anatomy) cheekbone

   Synonym: pòmul

mel

1. (archaic) Contraction of me el. (in medieval Catalan, nowadays written as me'l)

• “mel” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “mel”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “mel” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “mel” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): [ˈméːɬ]

mēl inan

1. second-person singular possessive singular of ēlli; (it is) your liver.

From Proto-Brythonic *mel, from Proto-Celtic *meli (“honey”) (compare Welsh mêl, Old Irish mil), from Proto-Indo-European *mélid, whence also Latin mel (“honey”).

mel m

1. honey

• IPA^(key): [ˈmɛl]

mel

1. second-person singular imperative of mlít

From Latin mīlle.

mel

1. thousand

From Old Norse mjǫl, from Proto-Germanic *melwą, from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to grind, rub, break up”).

mel n (singular definite melet, not used in plural form)

1. flour

• “mel” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “mel” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

mel

1. eye

From Old Galician-Portuguese mel, from Vulgar Latin *melem m or f, from Latin mel n.

• IPA^(key): [ˈmɛl]

mel m (plural meles)

1. honey

• “mel” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
• “mel” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006–2018.
• “mel” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
• “mel” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “mel” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

mēl

1. Romanization of 𐌼𐌴𐌻

From Vulgar Latin *melem m or f, from Latin mel n.

mel

1. honey

• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 1159: “il miele” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it

From Proto-Italic *meli, from Proto-Indo-European *mel-it (“honey”), with the athematic suffix *-it that indicates comestible substances (compare Proto-Indo-European *sép-it (“wheat”)). (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “What are some descendants of *sép-it?”) Cognate with Ancient Greek μέλι (méli), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌻𐌹𐌸 (miliþ), Old Armenian մեղր (mełr), Hittite [script needed] (milit), Luwian [script needed] (mallit-).[1]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /mel/, [mɛɫ̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /mel/, [mɛl]

mel n (genitive mellis); third declension

1. honey
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 3.743–744:

     colligit errantēs et in arbore claudit inānī
     Liber et inventī praemia mellis habet.

     Liber gathers the wandering [bees] and confines them in a hollow tree,
     and he has the rewards of discovering honey.
     (See Liber – the Greek Dionysus or Roman Bacchus – and The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus.)

   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Matthew 3:4:

     [...] esca autem eius erat lucustae et mel silvestre.

     And his food was locusts and wild honey.

   • c. 189 BCE, Plautus, Truculentus 371, (ed. by Friedric Leo, Plauti Comoediae vol. 2, 1896, Berlin: Weidmann):

     Heia, hoc est melle dulci dulcius.

     Ah! This is sweeter than sweet honey.

2. (figuratively) sweetness, pleasantness
   • c. 35 CE – 100 CE, Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 3.1.5:

     Sed nos veremur ne parum hic liber mellis et absinthii multum habere videatur

     But I fear that this book will have too little sweetness and too much wormwood.

3. (figuratively, term of endearment) darling, sweet, honey
   • c. 190 BCE, Plautus, Bacchides 18:

     cor meum, spes mea / mel meum, suavitudo, cibus, gaudium

     My heart, my hope, my honey, sweetness, food, delight.

Third-declension noun (neuter, i-stem).

• (darling, honey): mellītus
• (sweetness): dulcēdō, dulcitās, dulcitūdō, dulcor, mellinia

• Vulgar Latin: *melem m or f (see there for further descendants)

• “mel”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “mel”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• mel in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • somebody's darling: mel ac deliciae alicuius (Fam. 8. 8. 1)
    

From English mail.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmel/, [ˈmel]

mél (Jawi spelling ميل, plural mel-mel, informal 1st possessive melku, 2nd possessive melmu, 3rd possessive melnya)

1. (uncommon, mostly in compounds) mail

   Synonyms: pos, surat

• “mel” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

• mele, melle
• mal, male, meyle (chiefly Northern)
• mæl, mæle, meal (Early Middle English)

From Old English mǣl, from Proto-West Germanic *māl, from Proto-Germanic *mēlą.

• IPA^(key): /mɛːl/

mel (plural meles)

1. A time, occasion or event.
2. The occasion when a meal is consumed; mealtime.
3. A meal or feast.

• English: meal
• Scots: meal
• Yola: meale, mele
• → Irish: béile

• “mēl, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

• mjøl (also Nynorsk)

From Danish mel, from Old Norse mjǫl.

mel n (definite singular melet)

1. flour, meal

• beinmel
• fiskemel
• hvetemel
• melaktig

• “mel” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

mel

1. present of mala

From Latin mel, from Vulgar Latin *melem m or f, from Latin mel n.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛl/

mel m

1. honey
   • 13th century CE, Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa Maria, E codex, cantiga 278 (facsimile):

     […] que ſon mais doceſ ca mel […]

     […] which are sweeter than honey […]

• Galician: mel
• Portuguese: mel

From Proto-Brythonic *mel, from Proto-Celtic *meli, from Proto-Indo-European *mélit.

mel m

1. honey

• Middle Welsh: mel
  • Welsh: mêl

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese mel, from Vulgar Latin *melem m or f, from Latin mel n.

Compare Galician mel m, Spanish miel f.

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -ɛl, (Brazil) -ɛw
• Homophone: mele (Portugal)
• Hyphenation: mel

• Audio (Portugal)

  (file)

mel m (plural méis or meles)

1. honey

For quotations using this term, see Citations:mel.

Borrowed from English mel.

mel m (plural meli)

1. mel

• mèl (Sursilvan)
• meal (Sutsilvan)
• mêl (Surmiran)

From Vulgar Latin *melem m, from Latin mel n.

mel m (plural mels)

1. (Rumantsch Grischun) honey
2. (Rumantsch Grischun) jam

• (honey): mel d'avieuls

• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 1159: “il miele” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it

Borrowed from French mer (“sea”), with the 'r' turned into 'l'.

mel (nominative plural mels)

1. sea