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merge [merge 词源字典]: merge: [17] Merge comes from Latin mergere, which meant ‘dive, plunge’ (it was also the source of English emerge [16], which etymologically means ‘rise out of a liquid’, immerse [17], and submerge [17]). Merge was originally used for ‘immerse’ in English too, and the modern meaning ‘combine into one’ did not emerge fully until as recently as the 20th century. It arose from the notion of one thing ‘sinking’ into another and losing its identity; in the 1920s this was applied to two business companies amalgamating, and the general sense ‘combine’ followed from it.
=> emerge, immerse, submerge[merge etymology, merge origin, 英语词源]
meridian: meridian: [14] Etymologically, meridian denotes the ‘middle of the day’. It comes via Old French from Latin merīdiānus, a derivative of merīdiēs ‘mid-day’. This was an alteration of an earlier medidiēs, a compound noun formed from medius ‘middle’ (source of English medium) and diēs ‘day’. The application of the word to a circle passing round the Earth or the celestial sphere, which is an ancient one, comes from the notion of the sun crossing it at noon.
=> medium
mermaid: mermaid: [14] A mermaid is literally a ‘seamaiden’. The word was coined on the basis of English mere [OE], which is now a little-used term for ‘lake’, but originally denoted ‘sea’ (it came ultimately from Indo-European *mori-, *mari- ‘sea’, which also produced German meer ‘sea’ and Latin mare ‘sea’, source of French mer and English marine). Mermaid served in due course as a model for merman [17].
=> marine, mere
merry: merry: [OE] Merry goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *murgjaz, which appears to have been derived from a base meaning ‘short’. By the time it reached Old English, as myrige, it meant ‘pleasant’ – a semantic leap perhaps inspired by the notion of ‘shortening’ time by passing it pleasantly. The modern meaning ‘jolly’ did not emerge until the 14th century. A derivative of *murgjaz was the noun *murgithō, source of English mirth [OE]; Dutch has the related merchte ‘mirth’.
=> mirth
mesmerize: mesmerize: [19] Franz Anton Mesmer (1734– 1815) was an Austrian doctor whose experiments with what he called ‘animal magnetism’, by which he induced a trance-like state in his subjects, are considered to be the forerunner of modern hypnotism (formerly called mesmerism [19]). The broader sense of mesmerize, ‘enthral’, dates from the early 20th century.
mess: mess: [13] Mess comes via Old French mes from late Latin missus, a derivative of the verb mittere ‘send’ (source of English admit, mission, transmit, etc). This meant ‘sending, placement’, and its original metaphorical application was to a ‘round or heat of a contest’, but it was also used for a ‘course of a meal’, and this was the sense in which it originally entered English.

Traces of the food connection survive in the mess of pottage (literally a ‘dish of porridge or gruel’ made from lentils) for which Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, and in the sense ‘communal eating place’ (as in ‘sergeants’ mess’), which developed in the 16th century. But the main present-day meaning, ‘disorderly thing or condition’, did not emerge until as recently as the 19th century, apparently based on the notion of a mess as a ‘dish of assorted foodstuffs dumped unceremoniously and without thought on to a plate’.
=> admit, commit, mission, permit, transmit
message: message: [13] Etymologically, a message is something that is ‘sent’. The word comes via Old French message from Vulgar Latin *missāticum, a derivative of the Latin verb mittere (from which English also gets admit, mission, transmit, etc). Messenger [13] comes from the Old French derivative messager, and was originally messager in English; the n is a 14thcentury intruder, found also in such words as harbinger and passenger.
=> admit, commit, mess, mission, permit
messieurs: messieurs: see sir
messrs: messrs: see sir
metal: metal: [13] Greek métallon, a word of unknown origin, had a range of meanings, including ‘mine’ (the original sense) and ‘mineral’ as well as ‘metal’. These were carried over into Latin metallum, but by the time the word reached English, via Old French metal, ‘metal’ was all that was left. Mettle [16] is a variant spelling of metal, used to distinguish its metaphorical senses.

Closely related is medal [16], which etymologically means ‘something made of metal’. It comes via French médaille and Italian medaglia from a general Romance form *medallia. This was an alteration of Vulgar Latin *metallea, a derivative of Latin metallum. Medallion [17] goes back via French to Italian medaglione ‘large medal’.
=> medal, medallion
mete: mete: see meet
meteor: meteor: [15] Greek metéōron meant literally ‘something high up’, and was used to denote ‘phenomena in the sky or heavens’. It was a compound noun formed from the intensive prefix metá- and *eōr-, a variant form of the base of the verb aeírein ‘raise’. When English first took it over, via medieval Latin meteōrum, it was still in the sense ‘phenomenon of the atmosphere or weather’ (‘hoar frosts … and such like cold meteors’, Abraham Fleming, Panoplie of Epistles 1576), an application which survives, of course, in the derivative meteorology [17].

The earliest evidence of the specific use of meteor for a ‘shooting star’ comes from the end of the 16th century. The derivative meteorite, for a meteor that hits the ground, was coined in the early 19th century.
=> meteorology
meter: meter: see metre
method: method: [16] Method comes via French méthode and Latin methodus from Greek méthodos, which meant ‘pursuit’. It was a compound noun formed from the prefix metá- ‘after’ and hodós ‘way, journey’ (found also in English episode, exodus, and period). ‘Pursuit’ of a particular objective gradually developed into a ‘procedure for attaining it’, the meaning which the word had when it reached English. The derivative methodist [16], originally simply ‘someone who followed a particular method’, was first applied to the followers of John Wesley in the 18th century.
=> episode, exodus, period
methyl: methyl: see mead
métier: métier: see minister
metre: metre: [14] Greek métron meant ‘measure’: it came ultimately from the Indo-European base *me- ‘measure’, which also produced English measure, immense, etc. English originally acquired it, via Latin metrum and Old French metre, in the sense ‘measured rhythmic pattern of verse’. Then at the end of the 18th century French mètre was designated as the standard measure of length in the new metric system, and English reborrowed it as metre. Meter ‘measuring device’ [19] is probably a nominalization of the element -meter, occurring in such compounds as galvanometer [19], gasometer [18], and pedometer [18], which itself went back via French -mètre or modern Latin -metrum to Greek métron.
=> commensurate, immense, measure, mete
metropolis: metropolis: [16] A metropolis is etymologically a ‘mother city’. The word comes via late Latin mētropolis from Greek mētrópolis, a compound formed from métēr ‘mother’ (a distant relative of English mother) and pólis ‘city’ (source of English police, policy, politics, etc).
=> mother, police, policy, politics
mews: mews: [14] In former times, a mew was a place where trained falcons were kept (etymologically the word means ‘moulting-place’; it came from Old French mue, a derivative of muer ‘moult’, which was descended from Latin mūtāre ‘change’). In the latter part of the 14th century the Royal Mews were built in London on the site of what is now Trafalgar Square, to house the royal hawks.

By Henry VII’s time they were being used as stables, and from at least the early 17th century the term mews was used for ‘stabling around an open yard’. The modern application to a ‘street of former stables converted to human dwellings’ dates from the early 19th century.
=> moult, mutate
mezzanine: mezzanine: see medium