Home › Glossary › Letter M

Mead

Food And Drink
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An alcoholic drink fermented from honey. It evokes ancient feasting, heroic culture, and ceremonial fellowship.

Detailed Definition
Mead appears especially in poems drawing on medieval, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, or mythic traditions. Passed around a hall, it can affirm loyalty between ruler and retainers, bind strangers into fellowship, or accompany songs of battle and ancestry. Its honeyed source tempers martial imagery with warmth and richness. Modern poets may invoke mead to create an archaic atmosphere or to question the masculine ideals preserved in heroic feast scenes.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mead is associated with Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry, where the mead hall is a place of fellowship, storytelling, and loyalty; In Beowulf, Hrothgar’s hall Heorot is a central setting for feasting and drinking mead; A poet might write, “Mead rang in the cups while the old singer named the dead,” blending celebration with remembrance; Mead can give a modern poem an archaic, legendary atmosphere when used carefully with concrete details
Additional Notes
Mead evokes older heroic and mythic settings, where drinking seals fellowship, celebrates victory, or accompanies storytelling.
Also Known As
Honey Wine meadow
Skip to main content