Word of the Day: April 11, 2009 ~ jubilee

jubilee (joo-buh-lee) - noun

Jubilee means "the celebration of any of the certain anniversaries, as the twenty-fifth (silver jubilee), fiftieth (golden jubilee), or sixtieth or seventy-fifth (diamond jubilee)."

Jubilee was originally a Hebrew word meaning "leading animal, ram" and by extension, "ram's horn." Since a ram's horn was blown to announce the start of a special year (set aside once every fifty years according to ancient Hebrew law) in which slaves were freed, the term yōbhēl came to be used for the year itself.

Greek took it over as iobelos and formed an adjective from it, iabelaios.

This was passed to the Latin, and it was here that jubilation appeared. The Latin jūbilāre was the source of the English jubilation, which originally meant "to call out." Under its influence Greek iōbēlaîos became the Latin jūbilaeus, which was used in the expression annus jūbilaeus to denote this special Jewish year.

It soon came to be used as a noun and in this role passed via Old French jubile into English.  By this time the ideas of "fifty years" and 'joy, celebration' had mingled to such an extent that the word was being used for a 'fiftieth anniversary' or celebration, and remained current until the early 20th century (in present-day English it means simply 'anniversary' and is defined by golden silver, diamond, etc).