MELLIFLUOUS

[Dr. Goodword]

• mellifluous •

Pronunciation: mê-li-flu-wês • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Of speech: pleasant-sounding, beautiful, highly articulate, poetic. 2. Sweet as honey or sweetened with honey.

Notes: This Good Word amply demonstrates how we often confuse the senses. As the Word History shows, it originally referred to honey flowing over the tongue but the sweetness in this word now more often refers to the sound of speech than to taste: speech as beautiful as honey is delicious. Its synonymous cousin, mellifluent, has a noun, mellifluence, which to me is several degrees lovelier than the noun of today's word, mellifluousness.

In Play: Today's word goes far beyond mere goodness, it is one of the most mellifluous words in English itself: "Flo Wright translated the message into mellifluous, idiomatic Gnomish." The image of today's word is a smooth flow of almost poetic language, "Nosewaithe spoke in mellifluous tones that bound the audience in a collective spell."

Word History: This word is the English makeover of Latin mellifluus "flowing or dripping with honey", based mel 'honey' + fluere "to flow". Latin mel and Greek meli "honey" come from the same root as Russian med "honey" and English mead "fermented honey". By the way, mildew was not always held in such low esteem as it is today; it comes from Old English mildeaw "honeydew", based on the same root. Flu- is a cognate of English flow and flu. The name of the disease is a clipping of Italian influenza "influence", from the days when we believed diseases were the evil influence of celestial bodies. (This word was brought up by Katy Brezger in a discussion of the beauty of English words on –ous in the Good Words shop of the Alpha Agora.)

[Slava]

• mellifluous •

Meaning: 1. Of speech: pleasant-sounding, beautiful, highly articulate, poetic. 2. Sweet as honey or sweetened with honey.

So, given this second definition, could we go to a restaurant and ask for mellifluous tea?

A wonderful and beautiful word. It might be interesting to note that a near synonym is in a way nearly an antonym. Honey-tongued is pretty much a pejorative, do n't you think?