malmsey
nounUK /ˈmɑːmzɪ/ · US /ˈmɑ(l)mzi/
Etymology Via Middle English malmesye from Middle Dutch malemeseye, from Italian via Old French, ultimately from Ancient Greek Μονεμβασία (Monembasía, “Monemvasia”, a city on the Peloponnese), from μόνος (mónos, “only one”) + ἔμβασις (émbasis, “entering into”, ἐν- + βάσις). Doublet of malvoisie.
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A sweet fortified wine made in Madeira, originally from the malvasia grape.
- Take that, and that, if all this will not do, Stabs him. Ile drowne you in the Malmesey-But within.c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:
- All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong, thick drinks, as muscadine, malmsey, alicant, rumney, brown bastard, metheglin, and the like […], New York, published 2001, page 223
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- Hers was an idiotic sort of attachment, full of admiration for him, of voluptuousness for her, a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank into this drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence in his butt of Malmsey.1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter XII, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part II, page 210: