Etymology

From Proto-Baltic *mēnsa-, from Proto-Indo-European *mēmso- (with dissimilation of the second m), apparently an old reduplicated form of the stem *me-, *mē- ‎(“meat, flesh”) (i.e. *me-me-s or *me-em(ə)-s > *mēms(o)-). This stem has variants (*mē- > *mei-; cf. maiss) and may have originally been the name of some animal species (cf. *moi-so- ‎(“sheep”), and secondarily also the source of words for its meat, skin, or limbs. Semantically, miesa became restricted to “flesh” while its synonym gaļa (q.v.) became “meat,” but its original wider meaning can still be seen in the derived term miesnieks ‎(“butcher”). Cognates include Lithuanian dialectal meisà ‎(“meat”) (< *mēnsa-), Old Prussian mensā, menso ‎(“meat, flesh”), Old Church Slavonic мѧсо ‎(męso), Russian мя́со ‎(mjáso), Ukrainian м'я́со ‎(mʺjáso), мня́со ‎(mnjáso), Bulgarian месо́ ‎(mesó), Czech maso, Polish mięso, Slovak mäso, Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌼𐌶 ‎(mimz) (< *mēm-so-), Sanskrit मांसम् ‎(māṁsam), earlier मांस् ‎(māṁs, “meat”), Ancient Greek μηρός ‎(mērós, “upper leg, thigh”) (< *mēs-ro-), μῆνιγξ ‎(mêninx, “skin, brain membrane”) (< *mēs-no-), Latin membrum ‎(“organ, member”) (< *mēs-ro-m), membrāna ‎(“thin skin, membrane”).^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [mìɛsa]