entry
meadow
/ˈmɛdoʊ/grass-covered field, often for hay
From O.English mead / mæd (mown field).
from Proto-Germanic *medwo , which is reconstructed to be
+1 more sourcefrom Old English mædwe "low, level tract of land under grass; pasture," originally "land covered in grass which is mown...
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English medowe, medewe, medwe (also mede > Modern English mead)
Word Ancestry
from Proto-Germanic *medwo , which is reconstructed to be
+1 more sourcefrom Old English mædwe "low, level tract of land under grass; pasture," originally "land covered in grass which is mown...
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English medowe, medewe, medwe (also mede > Modern English mead)
A meadow began as an action before it became a place. Long before English speakers were picturing buttercups and fence lines, they were thinking about a field that had been cut, reaped, mown flat for hay — a landscape defined by labor, not just scenery. That is why meadow sits in the same old family as mow and, through older English forms, mead; the word is basically a fossilized snapshot of harvest season. Its Germanic cousins still flicker in old place-names and regional words like lea and ley, while the related sense survives in meadow-grass, the stuff you’d actually cut. So when you say meadow, you’re not naming a pretty field so much as a field with a scythe still ringing in it.
The Story
A meadow began as an action before it became a place. Long before English speakers were picturing buttercups and fence lines, they were thinking about a field that had been cut, reaped, mown flat for hay — a landscape defined by labor, not just scenery. That is why meadow sits in the same old family as mow and, through older English forms, mead; the word is basically a fossilized snapshot of harvest season. Its Germanic cousins still flicker in old place-names and regional words like lea and ley, while the related sense survives in meadow-grass, the stuff you’d actually cut. So when you say meadow, you’re not naming a pretty field so much as a field with a scythe still ringing in it.
Kin & Kindred
From 'mead / mæd'·mown field, pasture, meadow
Derived Terms
English words from this root