Where does “meatloaf” come from?
I need to flag a significant problem with this chain before writing the sentence. The chain provided has internal contradictions and unclear structure: - "Proto-Indo-European med-" appears twice identically - "Proto-Indo-European ḱóm" appears without clear connection to "med-" - "Proto-Indo-European meh₂d-" is listed last but seems to be an alternate form of "med-" - The connection between "Latin meta" and these PIE roots is unclear - Most critically, the chain jumps from "English meat" to "Middle English lof" to "Middle Dutch loef" — but "lof" and "loef" don't resemble "meat" phonetically, and "meatloaf" is a compound that would require separate etymologies for both elements **I cannot write an accurate one-sentence summary from this chain.** To proceed, I would
meatloaf (English): A dish of ground meat formed into a loaf shape,...
Definitions
- A dish of ground meat formed into a loaf shape,...
Ancestry of “meatloaf”, step by step
meatloaf traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English meat
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | meat | The flesh of an animal used as food; A type of... |
| 2 | Middle English | mete | Food, nourishment or comestibles; that which is... |
| 3 | Middle English | bake mete | Any kind of cooked food which has a pastry... |
| 4 | Middle English | baken | To bake; to cook in an oven; usually used of... |
| 5 | Old English | bacan | to bake |
| 6 | Proto-West Germanic | bakan | to bake |
| 7 | Proto-Germanic | bakaną | to bake |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | bʰeh₃g- | to bake, to roast, to fry |
via English loaf
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | loaf | A block of bread after baking; Any solid block of... |
| 2 | English | loafer | An idle person; A shoe with no laces, resembling... |
| 3 | Old English | lāf | remnant, remainder; remainder, residue, what is... |
| 4 | Proto-West Germanic | laibu | remainder |
| 5 | Northern Sami | láibut | to bake bread |
| 6 | Northern Sami | láibi | bread |
| 7 | Proto-Samic | lājpē | bread |
| 8 | Proto-Germanic | hlaibaz | bread |