Lent

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lente, a shortened form of lenten (“spring, Lent”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} inherited from Old English lencten (“spring, the fast of Lent”),^[3][2][7][5] from Proto-West Germanic *langatīn (“spring”),^[1] a compound that probably meant “long days” or “lengthening of the day”,^[3][8][2] referring to the lengthening days of spring.^[2][4][8] Its first part is Proto-Germanic *langaz (“long”), the source of long;^[3][2][8] the second is *tīna- (“day”), seen in Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌽𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌽𐍃 (sinteins, “daily”)^[3][2][4][9] and cognate with Lithuanian dienà (“day”) and Latin diēs (“day”),^[2][9][3] from Proto-Indo-European *dyeu- (“to shine”).^[3] The Old English word is cognate with Old Saxon lentin, Middle Dutch lentin and Old High German lengizin, all meaning spring,^[2][3][5][9] and with Dutch lente and German Lenz, which Klein takes as short dialectal forms^[9] and Hoad as formed on a shorter stem.^[4] The OED compares the loss of the final -n with maid;^[6] Etymonline suggests that the final syllable was taken for a suffix,^[3] and the full form survives in Lenten, now felt as an adjective.^[4][8] The church sense developed only in English; in the other Germanic languages the word kept the meaning “spring”.^{[2][3][4][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English lencten meant both spring and the spring fast.^[7][3][11] The short form appears in late Old English compounds for the season of spring,^[6] and for the Christian fast about 1300, in a Middle English life of Saint Brendan.^[6] Barnhart's first record of lente is in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, before 1387.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Old English poetical calendar spring began on 7 February and ended on 8 May.^[7] The secular sense “spring” was dying out in the 13th century, displaced by the church season,^[8] and the word spring replaced it;^[6] it survives only in compounds.^[6][12] From before 1387 Lent could mean one particular year's fast,^[6] and about 1450 it also came to mean an indulgence remitting as much sin as forty days of penance, as in lent of pardon.^[6] Between 1555 and 1908 it was used figuratively of any time of abstinence or suffering,^[6] and it has been used of the fasts of other religions since 1591.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as “the quadragesimal fast; a time of abstinence”, quoting Camden's explanation that Lent is so called “because it falleth in the spring”.^[13] At Cambridge the Lents have been the boat races of the Lent term since 1886.^[6][14] English dialects kept many compounds: the Lent-lily was the daffodil, in general use, Lent-corn grain sown in spring in Lancashire, Lincolnshire and Worcestershire, and in Devon boys cut off the heads of daffodils, called Lent-cocks, in place of the old custom of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 700 – lencten, spring.^[2]
• late Old English – lent, spring, in compounds.^[6]
• 1123 – lenten, spring, Lent.^[2]
• c. 1300 – the Christian fast before Easter.^[6]
• before 1387 – lente, the fast in a particular year.^[2][6]
• c. 1450 – an indulgence, lent of pardon.^[6]
• 1555 – figurative, a time of abstinence or penitence (obsolete by 1908).^[6]
• 1591 – any religious period of fasting.^[6]
• 1886 – Lents, the Cambridge boat races of the Lent term.^[6][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. In Christian churches, the forty weekdays from Ash Wednesday to the day before Easter, kept as a time of fasting and penitence in memory of Jesus' fast in the wilderness: She gave up sugar for Lent.^[14][5][6]
2. Any period of fasting or abstinence, including one in another religion.^[5][6]
3. (plural, at Cambridge University) The boat races of the Lent term.^[14][6]
4. (obsolete except in compounds) Spring, the season.^[6][12][4]

Related words

• Lenten
• long

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ 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)