See Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru/A Dictionary of the Welsh Language meddyglyn: a compound originally meaning 'medicinal draught, tonic', consisting of meddyg, 'medical practitioner' and llyn 2, 'drink'. In Welsh, its first element seems to have been conflated with medd 1, 'mead' by the fourteenth century (see meddlyn). By the fifteenth century a form with the element 'mead' appears in English and Anglo-Norman, either as a borrowing, or as a calque of one or both of the Welsh forms: in both languages the meaning would seem to be 'mead' but the presence of 'g' suggests meddyg.