Yes, we’re getting a second Word post this week, since next Monday is Christmas, following so closely on the heels of the Fourth Sunday of Advent that I won’t have a chance to talk about it before Christmas…so we’ll cover it now! Because obviously we can’t skip the week of love.
Love.
Not surprisingly, love has been in the English language pretty much forever, starting with lufu in Old English. It’s always been used to encompass all the different meanings we still have today, from romantic love to affection for family to the love of God. That Old English word lufu is of Germanic origin, and I grinned when I saw what other Germanic words it was directly related to. Like:
Old High German liubi – “joy
German Liebe – “love”
German Lob – “praise”
Don’t you just smile at how joy, love, and praise are all from the same root? That’s especially beautiful as we observe the season of Advent and prepare our hearts for Christmas…that ultimate expression of love, that perpetual cause for joy, and that event that deserves our eternal and unending praise.
The phrase fall in love dates from the early 1400s, and a hundred years later the concept of being in love with someone had followed. Make love used to mean courtship or wooing, specifically “to pay romantic attention to.” It wasn’t until thee 1950s that it had implied anything sexual. Love life dates from 1919.
But of course, in the days coming in this next week, I hope our thoughts focus not only on the people we love, but on the biggest Love ever known to mankind…the Savior who gave Himself for us.
Word Nerds Unite!
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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.