The Language of Christmas

Christmas is much more than a holiday: it's a cultural package. There are special Christmas traditions, Christmas colors and lights, Christmas knick-knacks and decorations. There is also a "Christmas language", a subset of vocabulary used a lot in the weeks preceding and culminating on December 25th.

Here is a sampler of the language of Christmas along with its linguistic baggage.

gift: With Christmas being the season for giving, gift is a really special word on the holiday vocabulary list. It is of Germanic origin, and specifically a borrowing of the Old Norse gipt. Ultimately, all gifts derive from the prehistoric Germanic root *geb- , the same root that has given us the English verb give. (Ironically, the Modern German Gift means "poison".)

merry: What is Christmas without a merry attached to it? The word merry is an interesting example of the giant semantic leaps that can take place on an etymological route. Originally, the Germanic *murgjaz (from which merry derives) meant "short". Its Old English descendant myrige, however, meant "pleasant". Quite a leap, right? Well, time does pass quickly when you're having fun, so this is probably the connection that led from the "short" *murgjaz to the "pleasant" myrige. In the 14th century, merry acquired its meaning of "happy, jolly", and this is how we use it today every time we wish someone a Merry Christmas. (The word mirth is related to merry, as they both derive from *murgjaz.)

mistletoe: The etymology of mistletoe is elusive. In Old English, there is misteltan, which is a compound word: mistel (mistletoe) and tan (twig). However, the mistel part remains of unknown origin.

noel/Noel: The lower-case noel is a Christmas carol, while the upper-case Noel is the celebration of Christmas. Noel derives from the Latin natalis (natal) via Old French. Noel, therefore, relates to birth (nativity) and specifically to the birth of Christ.

sleigh: This festive snow vehicle is a lexical borrowing from the Middle Dutch sleedse. Ultimately, sleigh derives from the prehistoric Germanic root *slid- (slide), which is also the source of the English slide.

tidings: The word tidings preserves the meaning of the English verb tide in the sense of "happen" (cf. betide). Tidings, therefore, are things that happen, events, and, eventually, news. The word derives from the Old Norse tithr (happening). The semantic leap involved here is from the actual event to news of the event, and it is in this latter meaning that we use the word when we refer to the "good tidings" of Christmas.

Yule: Although it is now synonymous with Christmas, Yule (from the Old English geol) was originally the name of a pagan midwinter festival. Yule is related to the Old Norse jol (meaning "midwinter festival"), which is possibly also related to the English jolly. Some linguists believe the ultimate source to be an Indo-European root that meant "to go around", in which case Yule would mean "the turn of the year", but this is just a speculation.

Source:

Merriam-Webster Online: http://www.m-w.com