mint
UK[mɪnt]US[mɪnt]
n
A plant whose leaves have a fresh smell and taste, used for flavoring food and drinks.
n
A sweet or piece of chewing gum that tastes of mint.
n
A place where coins are officially made by the government.
v
To make a coin out of metal.
Etymology
The word 'mint' for the aromatic plant originates from Old English 'minte', which was borrowed from Latin 'mentha' and Greek 'minthē', likely tracing back to a pre-Indo-European source. The financial term 'mint' (for a coin factory) comes from Old English 'mynet', meaning "coin," itself from Latin 'monēta' (money, mint), an epithet for the goddess Juno in whose temple coins were struck in Rome. The two distinct modern meanings—a plant and a place for coining money—are homographs that arrived via separate but convergent phonetic paths into English, losing their internal morphological structure in the process.
Analysis
The modern English word 'mint' is a simplex word derived from a single, unsegmentable root.
Examples
She added fresh mint to the iced tea.
He offered me a peppermint mint after the meal.
The newly minted coins were distributed to banks across the country.