Lent的词源
英文词源
- Lent
- Lent: [OE] The etymological meaning of Lent is ‘long days’. It comes from *langgitīnaz, a prehistoric West Germanic compound formed from *lanngaz ‘long’ and an element *tīnadenoting ‘day’. This signified originally ‘spring’, an allusion to the lengthening days at that time of year. It passed into Old English as lencten, which became Middle English lenten, but in the 13th century the -en was dropped from the noun, leaving Lenten to function as an adjective. By this time too the secular sense ‘spring’ was fast dying out, having been usurped by the application of Lent to the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
=> long - Lent (n.)
- late 14c., short for Lenten (n.) "forty days before Easter" (early 12c.), from Old English lencten "springtime, spring," the season, also "the fast of Lent," from West Germanic *langa-tinaz "long-days" (cognate with Old Saxon lentin, Middle Dutch lenten, Old High German lengizin manoth), from *lanngaz (root of Old English lang "long;" see long (adj.)) + *tina-, a root meaning "day" (compare Gothic sin-teins "daily"), cognate with Old Church Slavonic dini, Lithuanian diena, Latin dies "day" (see diurnal).
the compound probably refers to the increasing daylight. Compare similar form evolution in Dutch lente (Middle Dutch lentin), German Lenz (Old High German lengizin) "spring." Church sense of "period between Ash Wednesday and Easter" is peculiar to English.
中文词源
来自古英语Lenten,四旬期，复活节（Easter,原为春天女神）前的四十天，来自lencten,春天，词源同long,因春天白昼时间逐渐变长而得名。
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：Lent 词源，Lent 含义。
开始于Ash Wednesday（2-3月间）到Easter复活节长40天的一个宗教节日。len部分同long，末尾字母t表示day，与拉丁词源单词diurnal [daɪ'ɜːn(ə)l] adj.白天的；每日的，n.日记账；日报和daily日常的等单词同源。lent在古英语中本意是long-days，因为北半球春天开始白天变长。
