An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/messen

by Friedrich Kluge

messen, verb, ‘to measure, survey,’ from Middle High German mëȥȥen, Old High German mëȥȥan, ‘to measure, mete out, distribute, consider, test’; compare Old Saxon mëtan, Dutch meten, ‘to measure,’ Anglo-Saxon mëtan, ‘to measure, value, deem,’ Gothic mitan, ‘to measure’; also allied to Gothic mitôn, ‘to ponder, reflect on’; Old High German mëȥȥôn, ‘to moderate.’ The Teutonic stem mē̆t, ‘to measure, estimate, ponder’ (compare Maß), is based on pre-Teutonic mē̆d, and cannot, because of the non-permutation, be connected with Latin metiri; compare Latin modus, Greek μέδομαι μήδομαι, ‘to consider, estimate,’ μέδων, ‘adviser,’ μέδιμνος, ‘medimnus’ (about 12 galls.), Latin modius, Gothic mitaþs, ‘corn measure.’ See Metze (2).