Ash Wednesday is just a couple days away, and since I’m always fascinated by seasonal words, it seemed like a great time to look up Lent. Why is this the word chosen to represent the 40 days preceding Easter?
First, formations of Lent are unique to English (both Lent and lenten) to represent this time of year. Other languages use words that have their root in the word “forty” for the season. English, however, follows its typical habit of using existing seasonal words for Church calendar things and calls it Lent because it’s during spring, when the days lengthen. Yep, that’s right! Lent and Length are from the same root! The Old English word for “springtime” was lencten. Other Germanic languages have similar word forms for “length” but don’t use them for the liturgical season. English, however, has been using Lent since the 1100s!
Do you do any special observation of Lent?
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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. 
