Melissa

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "honey."

It forms all or part of: caramel; marmalade; Melissa; mellifluous; mildew; molasses; mousse.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek meli, Latin mel "honey; sweetness;" Albanian mjal' "honey;" Old Irish mil "honey," Irish milis "sweet;" Old English mildeaw "nectar," milisc "honeyed, sweet;" Old High German milsken "to sweeten;" Gothic miliþ "honey."

fem. proper name, prophetess and judge in the Old Testament, Hebrew, literally "bee" (thus the name is the same as Melissa).

fem. given name, invented by Philip Sidney in "Arcadia," published in the 1590s; it is presumed to have been coined from Greek pan- "all" (before a labialpam-; see pan-) + meli "honey" (also the first element in Melissa; from PIE *melit-ya, suffixed form of root *melit- "honey") with the sense "all-sweetness," but this is conjecture. It was boosted by Samuel Richardson's novel "Pamela" (1741) but did not become popular until the 1920s; it was a top-20 name for girls born in the U.S. from 1947 to 1968.