December

Etymology

The OED takes it as borrowed from Latin December, the Latin name of the month, later reinforced by Anglo-Norman december and Old French decembre,^[2] the source that Barnhart, Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary give for Middle English decembre.^[3][4][5][6] The Latin word is the masculine of an adjective used as a noun, short for a phrase with mēnsis (“month”),^[2] from decem (“ten”),^[2][3][4][7] from Proto-Indo-European *dekm- (“ten”),^[4][5] because it was the tenth month of the early Roman calendar, which began with March.^[3][4][8][7] The ending -ber, shared with three other month names, is of uncertain origin.^[2][9][10] Most scholars, according to Barnhart, derive it from an earlier -bris, in a form such as *decemembris from *decem-mēnsris, an adjective built on the Latin word for month;^[3][5][11] Etymonline also cites Tucker's alternative, *de-cem(o)-mr-is, "forming the tenth part".^[4] The OED compares Old Occitan dezembre, Catalan desembre, Spanish diciembre, Portuguese dezembro, Italian dicembre and German Dezember.^[2] In Old English it replaced the native names Ǣrra Gēola and Gēolmōnað, from Yule.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The twelfth month of the year: first in Old English tables of lucky and unlucky days.^[2] Barnhart and the MED date their first record to 1122, in the Peterborough Chronicle,^[3][12] and the Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1113–19.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English texts the Latin form December was often used for the month, sometimes beside the native names.^[2] Chaucer used decembre six times and Gower twice.^[14] Because the winter solstice falls in December in the northern hemisphere, the name has long stood figuratively for the end of things, especially old age;^[9] Johnson (1755) quoted Shakespeare's As You Like It: "Men are April when they woo, and December when they wed".^[15] In the 19th century the month gave a verb: to spend December somewhere (1845), after winter, and to make wintry or aged (1876).^[2] Decembrist, for the members of the Russian insurrection against Nicholas I in December 1825, is in English by 1868, translating the Russian name, from the Russian word for December.^[4][10]

Timeline

• Old English – the twelfth month of the year.^[2] Barnhart and the MED date the first record to 1122, in the Peterborough Chronicle.^[3][12]
• 1845 – verb, to pass or spend December (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1868 – Decembrist, a member of the Russian rising of December 1825.^[4]
• 1876 – verb, to make characteristic of December, to age.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 31 days, coming after November: The pond froze over in December.^[16][6][2]

Word family

• Decembrist
• May-December

Related words

• September
• October
• November
• decimal
• ten
• Yule

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins