Where Does The Word Christmas Come From

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.

Where does the word christmas come from. Crīst genitive crīstes is from greek khrīstos χριστός a translation of hebrew māšîaḥ מ ש יח messiah meaning anointed. 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 english term christmas comes from the combination of the words mass and christ according to the encyclopedia britannica.

The word christmas comes from the combination of the words christ and mass but where did the x in xmas come from and what does it mean. The word christmas comes from middle english cristemasse which in turn comes from old english cristes messe literally meaning christ s mass. The origin of mass in the christian sense of the word is not entirely clear. The form christenmas was also.

χριστός which became christ in english. Christmas christian festival celebrating the birth of jesus the english term christmas mass on christ s day is of fairly recent origin. The phrase dates back to 1038 more than 1 000 years after jesus christ was born while the word xmas originated in the 16th century. The word mass means death and was coined originally by the roman catholic church and belongs exclusively to the church of rome.

The bibliotheca sacra states the interchange of presents between friends is a like characteristic of christmas and the saturnalia and must have been adopted by christians from the pagans as the admonition of tertullian plainly shows vol. 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. Etymology christmas is a shortened form of christ s mass the word is recorded as crīstesmæsse in 1038 and cristes messe in 1131.

In the greek alphabet x is the symbol for the letter chi chi or x is the first letter in the greek word for christ. But have you ever stopped to wonder where the phrase merry christmas actually comes from. And mæsse is from latin missa the celebration of the eucharist.