The Catalan word ‘metzina’ means “poison”. It stems from the same Latin word as Catalan ‘medicina’, meaning “medicine”.

‘Metzina’ was inherited from spoken Latin. Its form and meaning changed a lot over the centuries.

‘Medicina’, on the other hand, is a late borrowing from written Latin.

Pairs like this are called doublets.

Here’s episode 7 of my doublet series: Catalan.

Next in line is Galician.