This weekend, advent begins. And so, it seemed the perfect word to study a bit this week. =) And then we’ll focus on holiday-themed words throughout our December Mondays!
Advent means, of course, “coming.” It’s from the Latin adventus, and specifically in Church Latin refers to “the coming of the Savior.” Since the days of Old English, it’s been the word used for the season leading up to Christmas. But it’s certainly worth noting that it doesn’t just mean that coming of the Savior–it’s also the word traditionally used when looking forward to when Jesus returns.
I love keeping that in mind each Advent season. That we’re not only looking backward, to when our Lord became man, but also looking forward, to when He’ll return for His church.
Final note on the word–these days it’s also used to mean any “important arrival,” but that generalization wasn’t accepted until the 1740s. Before that, it was exclusively used in the sacred sense in English.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.