Mead ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown. The English "mead" – "fermented honey drink" – derives from the Old English "meodu" or "medu", and Proto-Germanic, *"meduz" (source also of Old Norse mjöðr, Danish mjød, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch mede, Old High German metu, German Met "mead"). "Madh", and the related terms "mad" (मद, مد) and "madira" (मदिरा, مدِرا), also mean alcohol. These words are all derived from the
George J. Mead George J. Mead George Jackson Mead (December 27, 1891 Everett, Massachusetts – January 20, 1949 Hartford, Connecticut) was an American aircraft engineer. He is best known as one of the chief founding team members, together with Frederick Rentschler, of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Mead and Rentschler left Wright Aeronautical with the plan to start their own aviation-related business; they founded Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in July 1925. Their first project was to build a new, large, air-cooled, radial aircraft engine of Mead's design, which soon came to be named the Wasp. The first Wasp model was the R-1340, and a