mesi

‘honey’ · runosong lemma · Estonian and Finnish noun

English gloss	honey
Part of speech	noun
Language	Estonian and Finnish
Total occurrences	7,108
By corpus	SKVR 3,703, JR 2,261, KR 173 poems, ERAB 1,144

The counts in this table cover all attested spellings of this lemma, not only the headword form; all are word occurrences, except the KR figure in the By corpus row, which counts poems and is not part of the total.

Full dictionary entry · Search in the corpus · Geographic distribution

Attested wordforms

mettä, mesi, metta, mette, mesiksi, mett, metehen, mettee, metenä, metten, mejen, mesiä, mesittä, meten, metty, mesin, mesistä, medje, meddee, meega, meteen, mesille, mejem, mezi, mesiks, metini, meden, mesile, mesixi, mesillä, meska, mezittä, medi, mesisen, mesiänkö, meziä, medellä, medjet, mesie, mesist … and 77 more of 117 attested forms

In Estonian dictionaries

Definitions are shown in Estonian: the source dictionaries are Estonian-language works.

EKSS

mesi · mee, mett, meesse 36

magus siirupjas, seismisel kristalliseeruv vedelik, mis on tekkinud mesilase ensüümide toimel nektarist vm. taimeeritistest

EMS

mesi

mesilaste tekitatud magus siirupjas vedelik; nektar
(meelitamisest)
(taimehaigus)

Idamurre

mesi

mesi

Seto

mesi

mi̬i̬ mett mesi uni magusap mett, a ahi `armap immä

Sources: EKSS — Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut (CC BY 4.0) · EMS — Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut · Idamurde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut · Seto sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut

English words in the AI translations

How often the AI analysis used each English word when it translated the uses of this word. Forms of one English word are counted together, and one translation can contain several words, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.

English word	Uses	Share
honey (honey's, honeyed, honeys)	4,443	75.2%
forest (forest's)	778	13.2%
mead (meads, mead's)	538	9.1%
nectar	16	0.3%
sap	16	0.3%
like	14	0.2%
mettä	11	0.2%
grouse	9	0.2%
wood	9	0.2%
man (men)	6	0.1%
Uses counted	5,906

Example verses

mesi leivän leipojaisen (SKVR I1 157.) read in context
Baker of honey-bread."
mesi leivän leipojan (SKVR I1 159.) read in context
The baker of honey-bread."
mejen mussan mielekseni (SKVR I1 165.) read in context
Dark mead for my spirit.
mejen mussan muikieksi (SKVR I1 198.) read in context
The vendace in dark waters,
panen ästi mett ka potti (AES, MT 25, 13/6) read in context
Add honey to the pot as well.
peiul mesi kindal (AES, MT 50, 4/5 (3)) read in context
The groom has honey in his mitten,
tõid metta mõnesugusta (AES MT 287, 4/14) read in context
Brought honey of many kinds,
sina minu meelest nii kui mesi (AES, MT 174, 34/5) read in context
You’re like honey to my mind.

Companion words

Words that co-occur with this lemma inside the same verse line more often than chance predicts, ranked by log-likelihood (G²) over verse-level co-occurrence in SKVR, KR, JR and ERAB; only pairs seen at least 3 times.

Word	Association (G²)	Co-occurrences
keittää	2,999	475
kieli	2,250	415
mieli	1,275	305
latva	1,018	174
mehiläinen	790	120
tyvi	752	116
metsä	661	225
makea	626	107

Song types

Song types of the poems attesting this lemma, as catalogued per poem in the source corpora (ERAB type names are in Estonian, SKVR names in Finnish; JR and KR poems carry no song-type record).

Song type	Poems
Puun sanat	164
Käärmeen sanat	152
Raudan sanat	120
Raudan synty	111
Puun synty	107
Tulen sanat	105
Verensulku	86
Voiteen luku	82

Collection places

Where the poems attesting this lemma were collected; each count is the number of attesting poems recorded at that place.

Place	Poems
Vuokkiniemi	141
Narvusi	139
Ilomantsi	77
Suistamo	71
Lempaala	65
Kontokki	64
Uhtua	61
Kattila	56
Suojärvi	56
Soikkola	46

Attestation over time

Poems attesting this lemma by decade of collection or publication; undated poems are not shown.

Decade	Poems
1680–1689	1
1700–1709	3
1750–1759	2
1760–1769	1
1770–1779	3
1780–1789	28
1800–1809	9
1810–1819	67
1820–1829	89
1830–1839	143
1840–1849	231
1850–1859	173
1860–1869	37
1870–1879	134
1880–1889	607
1890–1899	515
1900–1909	243
1910–1919	316
1920–1929	134
1930–1939	371
1940–1949	86
1950–1959	30
1960–1969	40

Collectors

The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.

Collector	Poems
Elias Lönnrot	246
Kaarle Krohn	165
Forsberg (Alava), Vihtori	86
A. A. Borenius	85
D. E. D. Europaeus	76

Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 3,310)

SKVR: SKVR I1 157., SKVR I1 159., SKVR I1 165., SKVR I1 198., SKVR I1 200., SKVR I1 201., SKVR I1 322., SKVR I1 325., SKVR I1 329., SKVR I1 332., SKVR I1 334., SKVR I1 339., SKVR I1 339 a)., SKVR I1 520., SKVR I1 569., SKVR I2 713., SKVR I2 714., SKVR I2 717., SKVR I2 722., SKVR I2 724., SKVR I2 725., SKVR I2 730., SKVR I2 744., SKVR I2 745., SKVR I2 754., SKVR I2 757., SKVR I2 757 a)., SKVR I2 759 b)., SKVR I2 766., SKVR I2 767., SKVR I2 769., SKVR I2 772., SKVR I2 773., SKVR I2 781., SKVR I2 785., SKVR I2 786., SKVR I2 789 a)., SKVR I2 791 a)., SKVR I2 792., SKVR I2 802., SKVR I2 802 a)., SKVR I2 803., SKVR I2 805., SKVR I2 806., SKVR I2 809., SKVR I2 810., SKVR I2 811., SKVR I2 813., SKVR I2 816., SKVR I2 819., SKVR I2 824., SKVR I2 824 a)., SKVR I2 827., SKVR I2 839., SKVR I2 840., SKVR I2 845., SKVR I2 847., SKVR I2 850., SKVR I2 853., SKVR I2 854.

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About this profile

The counts and examples on this page come from the lemmatized text of four Finnic runosong corpora: SKVR, JR, KR and ERAB. The table of English words comes from an AI analysis of the corpus; song types, collection places, collectors and dates follow each poem's own catalogue record.

The table of English words is counted from the translations kept in the AI analysis files, which hold only the most frequent translations of each word or spelling, so rare translations can be missing. Words that carry only grammar (such as the, to or didn’t) are left out, and so are English words used fewer than 5 times or in less than 0.1% of the uses counted. The analysis files can group two closely related words, which then show the same table.

Verses are found by the spellings listed above, so an occasional verse may show a different word spelled the same way.