Santa Claus

Etymology

It is borrowed from Dutch Sante Klaas (“Saint Nicholas”), a dialect form,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} of Sint Klaas, modern Sinterklaas,^[2][3][7] from Middle Dutch Sinter Niklaas (“Saint Nicholas”),^[3][6] also Sinterclaes.^[8] The Dutch name is made up of sint (“saint”), heer (“lord”) (as in mynheer) and Klaas, a short form of Niklaas (“Nicholas”);^[8][9] the American Heritage Dictionary calls Santa Claus probably an alteration of the standard Dutch name.^[8] Dutch and German shorten the name Nicholas to its last part, while English keeps the first.^[10] The word arose in American English, from the customs of the old Dutch colony of New York.^[6][3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The imaginary person who brings children presents on the night before Christmas: 1773, in the New York Gazette (26 December), in the form St A Claus.^[2][6][4] Wilton quotes the same spelling from the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury of 20 December 1773, in a report of the celebration of Saint Nicholas's anniversary, which uses the same name.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The name is that of Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor who became the patron saint of children.^[3][11][12] He owes his role as a bringer of gifts to the legend that he gave three poor girls their dowries by throwing purses of gold in at their window;^[3][11][13] Wilton notes that this story, like the others about him, is a later folk addition.^[10] The custom of giving children presents on the eve of his feast, 6 December, was moved to Christmas Eve in the United States and other countries.^[3][13] The first records come from New York, a city steeped in Dutch tradition,^[10][6] and Washington Irving wrote of Saint Nicholas, "vulgarly called Santaclaus", in 1808.^[10] Hoad records the form Santiclaus from the 19th century.^[4] According to Simpson and Roud, Clement Clark Moore's poem of 1822 made the saint a fat man in fur driving a reindeer sleigh;^[14] Thomas Nast's illustrations of the 1860s used the colloquial Dutch name rather than the formal St Nicholas, and the all-red outfit with white trimmings became the norm in the 20th century, helped by a Coca-Cola advertising campaign of 1931.^[14] The name is now increasingly used in England too, generally shortened to Santa, beside the older English Father Christmas,^[14][15] which Etymonline dates to the 1650s.^[6] In Southern American dialect Santa Claus also meant Christmas presents or Christmas treats, from 1929, in Faulkner.^[2][16] In 20th-century slang it was also used of an older man who keeps a younger lover in money and gifts.^[17]

Timeline

• 1773 – the gift-bringer of Christmas Eve, as St A Claus.^[2][6][10]
• 1808 – the form Santaclaus, in Washington Irving's Salmagundi.^[10]
• 1929 – Christmas presents or treats, in American dialect.^[2][16]
• 1966 – slang, an older man who provides for a younger lover.^[17]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. A legendary old man with a white beard and a red suit who is said to bring presents to children on Christmas Eve, identified with Saint Nicholas; also called Santa or Father Christmas: The children left a mince pie out for Santa Claus.^[11][15][2]
2. (US dialect) Christmas presents or Christmas treats.^[2][16]
3. (slang) An older man who supplies a younger lover with money and gifts.^[17]

Word family

• Santa

Related words

• saint
• mynheer

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Wilton, Dave, Wordorigins.org, wordorigins.org, p. "Santa Claus", 13 December 2023
11. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
14. ^ a b c Simpson, Jacqueline; Roud, Steve (2000), A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com