jovial

Etymology

First recorded in the 1580s in the sense “under the influence of the planet Jupiter”,^[1][2] borrowed from Middle French jovial,^[1][3] from Italian gioviale,^[4][3] from Late Latin Ioviālis (“of Jupiter”),^[1][5] from Latin Iovis, Jupiter.^[5][3]

The sense “good-humoured, merry” comes from the astrological belief that those born under the planet Jupiter have such a disposition.^[1][2]

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
2. [1] [2] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. [1] [2] [3] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. [1] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. [1] [2] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin