malt: [OE] Malt goes back to prehistoric Germanic *malt-, a variant of which produced English melt. Hence it seems to denote etymologically the ‘softening’ of the barley or other grain by steeping it in water preparatory to germinating it for use in brewing (German malz means ‘soft’ as well as ‘malt’). => melt[malt etymology, malt origin, 英语词源]