Yule

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English yol, also yole,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English ġēol, earlier geohhol, also ġēola, Christmas Day or, in the plural, Christmastide.^[5][6][4][3] The Old English word corresponds to Old Norse jól, plural, the name of a heathen feast lasting twelve days and later of Christmas,^[5][6][7][8] which survives as Danish jul and Swedish jul, Christmas.^[4][9] Bede records Old English ġiuli in Anglian as the name of December and January; it matches ýlir (“the Yule month”) and Gothic 𐌾𐌹𐌿𐌻𐌴𐌹𐍃 (jiuleis, “the Yule month”), found in the Gothic name for November.^[5][6][3][4] The Germanic word, reconstructed as Proto-Germanic *jehwlą,^[10] is of obscure ultimate origin.^{[5][8][6][11]} Köbler compares Proto-Indo-European *i̯ek- (“to speak”),^[10] and Ayto mentions a speculation tracing it to Proto-Indo-European *qwelo- (“to go round”), the source of wheel and cycle, which would make it the "turn" of the year.^[11] Barnhart thought the Old English word was probably borrowed from a Scandinavian source,^[9] while the OED treats it as inherited from Germanic.^[5] According to Etymonline and Klein, the Norse word was borrowed into Old French as jolif (“festive”), now joli (“pretty”), the source of jolly.^[8][4][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the word named the months of December and January, a use now obsolete;^[5][3] the OED's first evidence is from Bede.^[5] It also meant Christmas and its festivities, first in the Old English Martyrology;^[5] Barnhart dates the sense "Christmas Day or Christmastide" to before 899.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline describes the Anglian giuli as a two-month midwinter season matching the Roman December and January, a time of important feasts but not itself a festival.^[8] When the English became Christian, the pagan midwinter feast was turned into Christmas,^[12][11][13] and the word narrowed to the twelve-day feast of the Nativity beginning on 25 December.^[8] In Old English the months were also named se ǣrra gēola (December) and se æftera gēola (January), the earlier and the later Yule.^[5][9] By the 11th century Christmas had replaced it except in the north-east, the area of Danish settlement, where yule stayed the usual word;^[8] the OED notes that it is still the name in Scottish and northern dialect.^[5] Wright's dialect dictionary records it from Shetland and Scotland to Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Lincolnshire, in forms such as yool, yeel and yull, with customs such as "letting in Yule" on Yule-day.^[14] From 1550 to 1853 yule was also shouted as a cry of joy at the Christmas revels, and in Scottish and northern use there was a verb yule, to keep Christmas (c. 1650).^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the time of Christmas".^[15] From about 1850 it returned to literary English as an archaism,^[5] with the sense of the Christmas of "Merrie England", in Etymonline's phrase.^[8]

Timeline

• Old English – December or January (obsolete, last recorded 1175).^[5]
• before 899 – Christmas Day or Christmastide.^[9] The OED's first record of the sense is in the Old English Martyrology.^[5]
• c. 1200 – Middle English yole, in the Ormulum.^[9]
• c. 1475 – yuletide.^[9]
• 1550 – an exclamation of joy at the Christmas festivities (obsolete by 1853).^[5]
• mid-17th century – yule log and yule block.^[8]
• c. 1650 – verb, in Scottish and northern dialect, to keep Christmas.^[5]
• 1652 – Yule of August, Lammas Yule, the festival of Lammas on 1 August (obsolete).^[5]
• c. 1850 – revived as a literary archaism for Christmas.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Christmas or the Christmas season and its festivities, often written with a capital; now literary or archaic, or dialectal in Scotland and northern England: They gathered by the fire at Yule.^[16][3][5]

Verb

1. (Scotland and northern England, dialect) To keep or celebrate Christmas.^[5][14]

Word family

• Yuletide
• Yule log

Related words

• jolly
• Christmas

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ 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)
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