Holy. It’s a word we know, but also one with enough homophones that it leaves plenty of room for jokes. Holy? Holey? Wholly? What I find fascinating is that at least two of those words are in fact from the same root!
Holy comes from Old English halig, which is in turn from old Germanic sources, and has always meant “consecrated, sacred.” It’s the word used to translate Latin sanctus, “sacred.” What I didn’t realize is that those Germanic roots trace, in turn, from a word that means “whole, uninjured.” So holy really does mean whole. Who knew? The idea is that it came from the concept of something that “must remain whole, intact. Something that cannot be violated.”
As of the date when I’m posting this, Holy Week has just begun. May our reflections on our Lord remain whole, intact, and unviolated.
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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.