lent
pronunciation
How to pronounce lent in British English:
UK [lent]
How to pronounce lent in American English:
US [ lent]
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- Noun:
- a period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday
Word Origin
- Lent
- Lent: [OE] The etymological meaning of Lent is ‘long days’. It comes from *langgitīnaz, a prehistoric West Germanic compound formed from *lanngaz ‘long’ and an element *tīnadenoting ‘day’. This signified originally ‘spring’, an allusion to the lengthening days at that time of year. It passed into Old English as lencten, which became Middle English lenten, but in the 13th century the -en was dropped from the noun, leaving Lenten to function as an adjective. By this time too the secular sense ‘spring’ was fast dying out, having been usurped by the application of Lent to the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.=> long
- Lent (n.)
- late 14c., short for Lenten (n.) "forty days before Easter" (early 12c.), from Old English lencten "springtime, spring," the season, also "the fast of Lent," from West Germanic *langa-tinaz "long-days" (cognate with Old Saxon lentin, Middle Dutch lenten, Old High German lengizin manoth), from *lanngaz (root of Old English lang "long;" see long (adj.)) + *tina-, a root meaning "day" (compare Gothic sin-teins "daily"), cognate with Old Church Slavonic dini, Lithuanian diena, Latin dies "day" (see diurnal). the compound probably refers to the increasing daylight. Compare similar form evolution in Dutch lente (Middle Dutch lentin), German Lenz (Old High German lengizin) "spring." Church sense of "period between Ash Wednesday and Easter" is peculiar to English.
Example
- 1. In principle , this money can be lent out .
- 2. Previously , all its funds were lent to the japanese banks for redeployment .
- 3. Chinese banks have lent freely to state-owned enterprises and local governments , partly on expectations that the central government will ultimately underwrite the risk .
- 4. According to her lawyers , she received money from investors that she plowed into her own business as well as lent out to others .
- 5. One option being discussed is for euro-zone governments to write off some or all of the 53 billion in bilateral loans that they lent greece under its first aid program in may 2010 .