Mix

Mix

This week, which here in America involves many different sorts of mixing, let’s celebrate mix — more specifically, *meik-, the Proto-Indo-European root of the word mix.

This root word’s progeny have landed all over the world & appear in:

Sanskrit — misrah — mixed

Welsh — mysgu — to mix

Old Church Slavonic — meso  — to mix

Russian — meshat — mix

Lithuanian — maišau — to mix or mingle 

Greek — misgein - to mix or mingle

And, of course, *meik- is responsible for heaps of English words:

mash — soft mixture from Old English

meddle — to interfere —  from Old French

medley — assortment or mixture (originally, hand to hand combat) from Old French

melange — collection of various things — from Old French

miscellaneous — collection of difficult-to-classify things — from Latin

mestizo/mestiza — person of mixed parentage — from Spanish

mustang — half wild horse of American prairie — from Mexican Spanish

pell-mell — confusedly — from  Old French

promiscuous — having or involving many sexual partners, but initially a disorderly mix — from Latin

melee — confused fight or brawl — from Old French

promiscuous — having many sexual partners, though it originally meant an indiscriminate, disorderly mix — from Latin

May this season find you mixing it up when it comes to food, to the folks with which you spend time, & possibly even the ways you think. Thoughts or comments? You know what to do.

My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, Merriam-Webster.com, Wordnik, Collins Dictionary, & the OED.