Meaning & use
mead
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Meanings
noununcountable
An alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey with water, often flavored with fruit, spices, or herbs.
Grammar: Uncountable; use 'some mead' or 'a glass of mead', not 'a mead'.
Patterns
- drink mead
- make mead
- a glass of mead
At the medieval fair, they served warm spiced mead in wooden cups.
My uncle brews his own mead at home using honey from his bees.
Mead can be sweet or dry, depending on how it is fermented.
nouncountableliteraryarchaic
A meadow or field of grass.
Grammar: Countable, but now mainly literary or archaic; usually appears in older texts.
Patterns
- a mead
- the meads
The poem describes shepherds walking through the green mead.
In old maps, the area was marked as 'the north mead'.
Common combinations
- spiced mead
- The tavern is known for its spiced mead, flavored with cinnamon and cloves.
- honey mead
- This honey mead is made from local wildflower honey.
- mead hall
- In Viking stories, warriors gathered in the mead hall to feast.
- brew mead
- It takes several weeks to brew mead at home.
- a glass of mead
- She ordered a glass of mead with her dinner.
Synonyms and how they differ
- honey wine
- A common alternative name for mead, often used on labels to make it sound more familiar to wine drinkers.
Commonly confused: mead or mead? mead or mead?
mead vs mead
Not to be confused with 'mead' as a meadow, which is a different, archaic sense of the same word.
mead vs mead
Do not confuse with 'meed' (a literary word for reward), which sounds the same but is very rare.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'mead' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Mead' is uncountable, so 'some mead' is correct. 'A mead' (option 0) treats it as countable, which is wrong. 'Meads' (options 2 and 3) is not a standard plural for the drink.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mead”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.