蜜

A phono-semantic compound:

虫 (“insect, bug”) — semantic element, pointing to bees/insects.

宓 (mi, phonetic) — phonetic element, provides sound.

The original sense is “honey”, extending to “sweet” and substances resembling honey or wax.

Linguistic note:

蜜 is a loanword from the Indo-European Tocharian language family, where the word for “honey” resembled mit.

Thus, 蜜 is a true cognate with:

- English mead (fermented honey drink)

- Latin mel (“honey”)

- Greek méli (μέλι, “honey”)

This reflects cultural contact between early Chinese speakers and Tocharian peoples in Central Asia.

蜂蜜 (봉밀) — honey

蜜月 (밀월) — honeymoon (“honey month”)

蜜語 (밀어) — sweet talk, whispers of love

蜜蠟 (밀랍) — beeswax

甘蜜 (감밀) — sweet honey

蜜 occasionally appears in classical texts with the sense “meticulous, fine, subtle” (세밀하다).

In both Chinese and Korean, 蜜 has strong metaphorical use: sweetness, intimacy, or secrecy (밀어, “secret/sweet words”).

The Indo-European loan origin makes 蜜 one of the rare Chinese characters whose etymology shows direct contact with Indo-European languages.