Where does “vespers” come from?
Vespers comes from Old French vespre, from Latin vesper meaning evening, from Proto-Indo-European wekʷsperos, literally the time of darkness or nightfall.
vespers (English): The sixth of the seven canonical hours; plural of...
Definitions
- The sixth of the seven canonical hours; plural of...
Ancestry of “vespers”, step by step
vespers traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English vesper
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | vesper | The bell that summons worshipers to vespers; the... |
| 2 | German | vesper | Vespers service in the late afternoon or early evening |
| 3 | Middle High German | vesper | — |
| 4 | Old High German | vespera | — |
| 5 | Latin | vespera | evening, eventide |
| 6 | Latin | vesper | the evening or vespers; supper, dinner; the... |
| 7 | Proto-Italic | *wesperos | — |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | wek(ʷ)speros | evening |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | we- | — |
via Middle English vespers
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | vespers | The sixth of the seven canonical hours; The... |
| 2 | Old French | vespres | — |
| 3 | Ecclesiastical Latin | vesperae | — |
| 4 | Latin | vesperus | evening |
| 5 | Latin | -us | suffix forming adjectives from nouns, verbs,... |
| 6 | Old Latin | -os | accusative masculine plural of -us |
| 7 | Proto-Italic | -os | — |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -ós | Creates agent nouns from verb stems, denoting... |