Lent/Long #etymology

To those who observe it, Lent may seem like a long time, but really it’s the lengthening days as we approach the spring equinox that are etymologically important. The Modern English word Lent is a shortening of Old English lencten, which originally meant “spring” before being co-opted to refer to the period of abstemiousness that runs from Ash Wednesday to Easter in the Christian calendar. It referred to the lengthening daylight at that time of year, coming from West Germanic *langitinaz “lengthening of day”, from the Proto-Germanic *langaz “long”, which itself became Old English lang and Modern English long, + *tina- “day” (from the Proto-Indo-European root *dyeu- “to shine”). Length and lengthen also come from this same root, from the abstract noun *langitho, made up from *langaz + *-itho, a suffix that creates abstract nouns from adjectives (also in pairs like strong/strength). Germanic *langaz ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *dlon-gho-, a suffixed form of the root *del- “long”. The change in the vowel that you can still see in the pair long/length (and in strong/strength) is caused by i-mutation from the /i/ in the suffix *-itho (though the /i/ is no longer present in the modern form of the word) pulling the original back vowel /a/ forward and higher up in the mouth closer to where the /i/ sound is made, and this is the same with Lent due to the /i/ in *tina- “day”.