Re: Meet, meet, and mete

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "A." <xthanex@...> wrote:

> Greetings all,

> Does this mean that while mete and meet(2) have the same root, the
> two forms of "meet" come from different roots?

Yes. Indeed, _mete_, _meet_ 'fitting' and _meat_ 'food' all come from
the measure word.

> I was told the term mæþel (maethel) "assembly, council," derives from
> root of mētan "to meet". It seems to make sense well enough.

The consonant looks wrong to me. The 'assembly' word has Germanic
stem *mo:t- (> English _moot_, _meet_ with umlaut), and I don't see
how to get /þ/ from Germanic *t.

Richard.