Meon : rivière d'Angleterre, comté de Hamphire.

Étymologie :

* Rivet & Smith, p. 419 : 

*MOINA

SOURCE

* Ravenna 108₂₅ (= R&C 238) : MAINA, var. MAVIA

R&C adopted Mavia as their main reading, and identified it with the river Meavy of Devon; for this, Williams provided a root *mav-, which has modem derivatives, and a meaning for the river-name of 'lively one, quick stream '. However, apart frorn the textual doubt, it is not probable that the Meavy was important enough to figure in Ravenna. If we take Maina as the proper form, an easy emendation provides immédiate analogues and a modem derivative: *Moina would have involved the common miscopying for a for o.

DERIVATION. *Moina is identical to Gaulish Moenus > Main river of Germany and to Middle Irish Main, Maoin (< * Moina) now the Caragh river of Kerry ; probably also related are the Minius > Mino river of Galicia (Spain) and the Polish rivers Mieé, Mianka. The root is probably Celtic *mei- as in Latin meo, with a sense ' to go ' ('moving one, fast-moving one'?). See Holder II. 606, Ekwall ERN 288, and Pokorny in ZCP, xxi (1940), 55. The name is Meon today, for which Ekwall postulates an ancient Moenus or similar as origin.

IDENTIFICATION. Probably the river Meon, Hampshire.