The problem here is, I suppose, how to find the most “oldest” word in this group, which “generated” the others. Following the Serbian language, it seems that mešati ‘mix’ and mesiti ‘knead’ come out from the verb maknuti ‘move, remove’ or micati ‘move, displace’ (Gr. μετακίνημα? ? ‘movement, displacement’). Of course,

Serbian maknuti is also known as metati ‘to put on’ throw’ (hence meta ‘target’), mesti ‘broom, sweep’, mesto ‘place’ (from premestiti, premeštati ‘to displace, demote, transpose’), smestiti ‘settle, locate, accommodate, situate’. In addition, also, mahati ‘wave’, muvati ‘to move aimlessly’(hence muva/muha ‘fly’). All these above-mentioned words comprise in itself the meaning of motion.

Even the Serbian word mašta, maštanje ‘fantasy, imagination’ is a certain kind of motion, from umeštanje ‘to fit up/in, arrange, furnish, setup’ (hence umetnost ‘arts’, umeti ‘to know how’). English mash is the same word as Serbian smeša/smjesa ‘mash, mixture’.

It seems that metonymy has done a lot of mess here . For instance, Serbian mazati ‘to smear’ (hence mast ‘lard’) is clearly related to mesiti ‘to knead’ and mešati ‘mix’, but also it is related to smazati ‘eat greedily’ (cf. Eng. mess), and meziti ‘to eat’, meze ‘food’, meso ‘meat’).

English miss appeared to be equal to Serbian mašiti ‘miss’ (I mentioned above the Serbian word meta ‘target, goal’ and metanje ‘throwing’), all, it seems, related to maknuti ‘move’, metati ‘throw’ and micati ‘move’ (cf. Eng, motion).