matins

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English matines,^[2][3][4] the plural of matin,^[5] borrowed from Old French matines, also Anglo-Norman.^[6][2][3][7] The OED dates the French form to the 11th century and Etymonline to the 12th.^[6][8] It is a specialized sense of the plural of matin (“morning”),^[6][7] after Late Latin mātūtīnae (“morning prayers”), recorded from the 5th century,^[6][8][9] originally in phrases such as mātūtīnae vigiliae (“morning watches”).^{[8][9][2][10]} The Old French noun comes from Latin mātūtīnum (“morning”), the neuter of mātūtīnus (“of the early morning”),^[6][7] formed on Mātūta, the Roman goddess of dawn,^{[6][8][11][12]} whose name shares a base with mātūrus (“ripe; early”), the source of mature.^[6][11][10] De Vaan reconstructs this base as Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-tu- (“ripeness”).^[13] The OED compares Spanish matines (1207) and maitines (1343), Catalan matines and Old Occitan matinas.^[6] The Old English word was uhtsang, from uhte (“daybreak”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The service that came before the first mass of the day: before 1275, in an early English lyric.^[6] Barnhart dates the word to about 1250 and Etymonline to the mid-13th century;^[9][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the 14th century for the night office.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Although its name means morning, Etymonline and Weekley point out that it was properly a midnight office, though sometimes celebrated at sunrise.^[8][10] The office itself is recorded by name from about 1300,^[6] and Chaucer and Gower each use the word once.^[14] The Act of Uniformity of 1548–9 carried the name over to the Anglican morning service, which, as Weekley says, combined matins, lauds and prime.^[6][10] Poets applied it to the morning song of birds from about 1530,^[6] and Milton in 1642 to a morning duty.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave simply "morning worship".^[15] A singular matin also existed: it meant the office in the late 15th century,^[6] a morning from 1604, in Hamlet,^[6] and a bird's song from 1645, in Milton.^[6] Weekley compares matinée, an afternoon performance, with the English morning call, which also belonged to the afternoon.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1275 – the service preceding the first mass of the day.^[6]
• c. 1300 – the breviary office, with lauds the first of the canonical hours.^[6]
• c. 1530 – the morning song of birds.^[6]
• 1546 – verb, to say matins in honour of a saint, in Bale (recorded only this once).^[6]
• 1548–9 – the Anglican morning service.^[6]
• 1604 – singular matin, a morning, in Hamlet (obsolete by 1855).^[6]
• 1642 – a morning duty or occupation, in Milton.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A liturgical night office that, with lauds, forms the first of the canonical hours in the Western Church: The monks rose in the dark for matins.^[3][12][6]
2. In the Church of England, the service of morning prayer.^[12][3][6]
3. (literary) The morning song of birds.^[12][6]
4. (historical) A service, including that office, held before the first mass of the day.^[6][5]

Related words

• matinee
• matutinal
• matutine
• mature

Usage notes

It takes either singular or plural agreement,^[6][12] and is often capitalized.^[3] Collins, Hoad and Weekley also give the spelling mattins.^[12][4][10]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b 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)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.