January

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin Iānuārius (“of Janus”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} used as a noun, short for mēnsis Iānuārius (“month of January”),^[2] and formed from Iānus (“Janus”) and -ārius.^[2][6][1] Old English used the Latin form for the month,^[2][7] and the word later replaced the native name gēola se æfterra (“later Yule”).^[8][9] Middle English first had Jenever and Genever,^[10][3][11] from Anglo-Norman genever, also janver, and Old French janvier,^[2][12][11] themselves from the Latin word, in its post-classical form Ienuarius.^[2][13] The form Januarie is a Latinization of these,^[10][1][8] from which the modern spelling comes.^[9][6] The god's name is the Latin common noun for an arched passage or doorway,^[10][6][13] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *ieh2-n-u- (“passage”).^[13] The Latin month name also gave Italian gennaio, Spanish enero, Portuguese janeiro and French janvier.^[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first month of the year: Old English, before 1000.^[2][7] Bald's Leechbook names the month "þe we hatað ianuarius on læden, & on englisc se æfterra geola".^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Collins and Hoad date the word to the 14th century.^[6][14][11]

Semantic evolution

According to Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, added Januarius and Februarius to fill a two-month winter gap in a ten-month calendar, and took the first from Janus, god of gates and later of beginnings.^[15] Janus was pictured with two faces,^[4][11] and the month was named for him because he presided over the entrance into the year.^[2][4] In Chaucer January is also a type-name for an old man,^[8] and the Shorter Oxford records the phrase May and January.^[5] Johnson (1755) repeated the old account, "from Janus, to whom it was among the Romans consecrated".^[16] In dialect the month kept older shapes, such as Janiveer in Scotland and Cumberland and Jiniver in Surrey, mostly in weather lore like the Cumberland "Janiveer, freeze the pot o' the fire"; in Sussex January-butter was mud, which was lucky to bring into the house then.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English uses the Latin form of the name for the month.^[2][7]
• before 1300 – Genever, followed about 1300 by Jenever.^[10] Etymonline dates the English word to the late 13th century.^[8]
• 1391 – Januarie, the Latinized form.^[10]
• 1678 – Janiveer, in Ray's collection of proverbs.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The first month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar, with 31 days, coming before February: The lake often freezes by late January.^[2][14][6]

Related words

• Janus
• janitor

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)