men-
“to think, to have in mind”mind/think
PIE root meaning to think or to have in mind. Source of English "mind," "mental," Latin mēns, and Greek ménos.
Discussion
The Proto-Indo-European root *men- meant "to think, to have in mind, to remember" and is one of the most important roots for understanding the Indo-European vocabulary of cognition, memory, and mental life. The root is extraordinarily productive across all major branches, having generated hundreds of derivatives that collectively map the Proto-Indo-European understanding of the mind.
In Germanic, the root produced Old English munan "to think, to remember" (now archaic) and gemynd "memory", the ancestor of modern English mind. The word mean (in the sense of "to intend", from Old English mǣnan "to have in mind") is also derived from this root. The words remind (to bring back to mind), moan (originally an expression of mental distress), and possibly moon (through a connection to the measurement of time, "the measurer") have been linked to this root, though the last connection is debated.
Latin mēns "mind" (genitive mentis) has been spectacularly productive: mental, mentality, mention, demented, comment (literally "thinking together"), and memento. Latin meminisse "to remember" gave English memory, memorable, memoir, memorial, and commemorate. The related Latin word monēre "to warn, to remind" produced monitor, monument, admonish, premonition, and monster (originally a divine warning or portent). Latin Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, bears a name derived from this same root.
Greek menos "spirit, mind, force" and mnēmē "memory" gave English amnesia (loss of memory), mnemonic (a memory aid), and the mythological figure Mnemosyne (goddess of memory, mother of the Muses). Sanskrit manas "mind" and manyate "thinks" confirm the Indo-Iranian reflexes and connect to the name Manu, the first man in Hindu tradition — literally "the thinker".
The root *men- reveals that the Proto-Indo-European speakers conceptualised thinking and remembering as aspects of a single faculty. The mind was not merely an organ of reasoning but fundamentally a repository of memory — to think was to remember, and to be minded was to be mindful of the past.
Notes
Source of Latin "mēns" (mind), English "mind", Sanskrit "mánas". Core PIE root.
Related Roots
English Words from *men-
These modern English words descend from this root. Each page traces the full journey from PIE to present-day English.