eve

Pronunciation

• IPA: /iːv/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English eve, a variant of even “evening”,^[2][3][4] which is inherited from Old English ǣfen;^[5] the final n was lost, perhaps because it was taken for an inflection,^[5][2] as in game, maid and clew.^[3][6] The Old English word is from Proto-Germanic *ēbanþ-, which also gave Dutch avond and German Abend, and is of uncertain origin.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Evening, especially the time between sunset and dark: about 1200 in Etymonline and probably before 1200 in Barnhart; before 1250 in the OED.^[5][2][7]

Semantic evolution

The evening, and then the day, before a saint's day or church festival is from the late 13th century, about 1290 in the OED, as in Christmas Eve;^[5][7] the sense existed earlier in the form even (1121) and in Old English ǣfen (about 725).^[2] The time just before any event, as in on the eve of the war, is from 1780.^[5][7] In its original sense eve has been replaced by evening and survives only in poetry.^[5][6]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – evening.^[5][2]
• c. 1290 – the day before a festival.^[7]
• 1780 – the time just before an event.^[5][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The evening or day before a holiday or special day: Christmas Eve.
2. The time just before an important event: on the eve of the election.
3. (literary) Evening.

Word family

• yestereve

Related words

• evening
• even
• evensong
• eventide

Usage notes

Eve, the name of the first woman in Genesis, is a different word, through Late Latin Eva from Hebrew Ḥawwāh, explained in the Bible as “a living being”;^[5][4] Robert Alter notes that this, like most name explanations in Genesis, is probably a folk etymology, and that the name sounds like the Aramaic word for “serpent”.^[5]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press