Origin Of The Word Christmas

Christmas n church festival observed annually in memory of the birth of christ late old english cristes mæsse from christ and retaining the original vowel sound mass n 2.

Origin of the word christmas. Christmas christian festival celebrating the birth of jesus the english term christmas mass on christ s day is of fairly recent origin. No article about christmas is complete without some explanation of the christmas tree we have touched on it without directly focusing on it. Crīst genitive crīstes is from greek khrīstos χριστός a translation of hebrew māšîaḥ מ ש יח messiah meaning anointed. And mæsse is from latin missa the celebration of the eucharist.

The word christmas comes from middle english cristemasse which in turn comes from old english cristes messe literally meaning christ s mass. The exact origin of mistel is as equivocal as the origin of the kissing tradition associated with mistletoe. Origin of the christmas tree. The second part of christmas maesse is a version of the latin word missa the celebration of the eucharist tradition of eating bread and drinking wine in memory of jesus.

The modern christmas tree originated in germany. But the germans got it from the romans who got it from the babylonians and the egyptians. Xmas also x mas is a common abbreviation of the word christmas it is sometimes pronounced ˈ ɛ k s m ə s but xmas and variants such as xtemass originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation ˈ k r ɪ s m ə s the x comes from the greek letter chi which is the first letter of the greek word christós greek. Of course we are not talking about the physical mass of christ s body.

The earlier term yule may have derived from the germanic jōl or the anglo saxon geōl which referred to the feast of the winter solstice the corresponding terms in other languages navidad in spanish natale in italian noël in french all. As a verb to celebrate christmas from 1590s. The origin of mass in the christian sense of the word is not entirely clear. The word is thought to derive from one of two earlier words.

Germanic mist a word for dung and germanic mash a mixture of malt and water that forms wort to make beer and whiskey. It comes from a greek word that means anointed one the hebrew word is messiah a term that old testament prophets used to describe the. χριστός which became christ in english. The word mass means death and was coined originally by the roman catholic church and belongs exclusively to the church of rome.

In short christmas is strictly a roman catholic word. The ritual of the mass involves the death of christ and the distribution of the host a word taken from the latin word hostiall meaning victim. The word christmas has its origin from the old english term cristes maesse meaning christ s mass 1 though the word christ is commonly used as jesus name it is actually a title. This is also called.