An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/mengen

by Friedrich Kluge

mengen, verb, ‘to mingle, mix, blend,’ from Middle High German męngen, ‘to mix, mingle,’ feminine, introduced from Middle German and Low German; in Old High German, męngan occurs once as a Franconian word (in Isidore); Old Saxon męngian, Dutch mengen, Anglo-Saxon męngan, Middle English mengen, ‘to mix’ (whence English to mingle); Gothic *maggjan is wanting. Allied to Old Saxon gimang, Anglo-Saxon gemong, ‘mingling, commixtio, company, troop’; Anglo-Saxon on gemǫng, English among, so too Old Saxon an gimange. From these may be deduced a West Teutonic root mang, ‘to mix,’ which, however, is unknown to Suabian and Bavarian. It has been connected with hardly sufficient reason, with the root mik, ‘to mix’ (see mischen), which appears in most of the Aryan languages; it is more probably allied to Lithuanian mìnkau, mìnkyti, ‘to knead,’ mìnklas, ‘dough’ (Old Slovenian mękŭkŭ, ‘soft,’ mąka, ‘meal’). In that case mengen would be traced to a pre-Teutonic root meng, ‘to knead.’