Talk:meu

RFV discussion: October–December 2014

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meu

A kitten's meow (as opposed to an adult cat's, perhaps?). Having trouble finding this in English. Equinox ◑ 15:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The only mentions of this word I can find in English are:

1. In the OED: "The herb spignel, Meum athamanticum. Also: the root of this plant."
2. 1819 London Quarterly review: "[S]omewhat less than an English acre." From Mandarin 畝／亩 (mǔ) or 亩 (mǔ).
3. If it is used in the plural form meus, it is overwhelmed by the Latin.

I can find no evidence of this use in English. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 19:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps the originator (from UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA) was thinking of mew? (It wasn't User:Wonderfool, was it?) But then, why did Connel MacKenzie add an etymology?

I suggest that we just change the entry to the herb definition. Dbfirs 20:29, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I've added the herb definition and found we had two of the other vernacular names for w:Meum athamanticum already. I converted the {{rfv}} to {{rfv-sense}}. I wonder how the herb name is pronounced. It must be derived from the genus name, perhaps with the terminal s interpreted as a plural ending. DCDuring TALK 21:21, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I've added pronunciation and etymology according to the OED, Perseus, and other sources. The OED's proposal that meu passed through Middle French from Latin mēum from AG μῆον would account for the nasalization and loss of the final m and the reinterpretation of Latin /eːu/ > MF /œː/ > Eng /juː/. This seems a plausible enough account for its pronunciation and spelling to me. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 22:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. The genus name is just Pliny's transliteration of Discorides' name for the plant. DCDuring TALK 22:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

We have a policy against paywall links, don't we. DCDuring TALK 22:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Aha, sorry about that. What would be the better way to cite that (apologies for the noobishness)? —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 22:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• RFV failed (on one etymology of an English entry): no attesting quotations provided. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:26, 26 December 2014 (UTC)