Mylenweard

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for a person who guards or looks after a mill and its grounds
2. Old English word for a keeper or watchman responsible for a mill
3. A historical label for the attendant who tends and protects a grain mill

Etymology: Old English speakers built this compound from two plain parts. "Mylen" meant "mill," a device for grinding grain, and "weard" meant "guardian" or "keeper," the same root that gives modern "ward" and "warden." Put together, the term named the person who looked after a mill, the miller's keeper or attendant. The first part reaches back to Latin. "Molina," the source of Germanic words for mill, came from "mola," meaning millstone, so the mill is named after the stone that did the grinding. Speakers of early Germanic languages borrowed the term and reshaped it, and by the Old English period "mylen" was already a familiar word for a grinding machine. Compounds like this one were a common way for Old English to name specialized people or jobs.

Synonyms: miller