[6] The -nth-/-nthos- element in menthe has been described as a characteristic of a class of words borrowed from a Pre-Greek language: compare akanthos, Zakynthos, labyrinthos, Korinthos, and hyakinthos.

[9][10] In jealousy, his wife Persephone intervened and metamorphosed Minthe, in the words of Strabo's account, "into the garden mint, which some call hedyosmos (lit.

For she had said that she was nobler of form and more excellent in beauty than dark-eyed Persephone and she boasted that Aidoneus would return to her and banish the other from his halls: such infatuation leapt upon her tongue.

[18][19] According to Julius Pollux's Onomasticon, Minthe was mentioned by the poet Cratinus, an Athenian playwright of the Old Comedy, in his lost play Nomoi ("Laws").

[21][22] In ancient Greek culture, a pallake referred to a man's unmarried consort; she was of lower status than a legally married wife, but stood higher than a common prostitute or a hetaira.

[26] It also was regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac, hence Minthe's role in becoming the lover of Hades; at the same time it was used as a contraceptive method,[28] as it was believed that consuming it before the act would prevent a pregnancy.