different between jubilee vs ceremony

English

Alternative forms

• jubile [16th-18th c.]

Etymology

From Middle French jubile (French jubilé), from Late Latin j?bilaeus. Beyond this point, the etymology is disputed. Traditionally this derives from Ancient Greek ????????? (i?b?laîos, “of a jubilee”), from ??????? (i?b?los, “jubilee”), from Hebrew ????? (yob?l/yov?l, “ram, ram's horn; jubilee”), presumably because a ram’s horn trumpet was originally used to proclaim the event. More recent scholarship disputes this – while the religious sense is certainly from Hebrew, the term itself is proposed to have Proto-Indo-European roots. Specifically, this interpretation proposed that Late Latin j?bilaeus is from i?bil? (“I shout for joy”), which predates the Vulgate, and that this verb, as well as Middle Irish ilach (“victory cry”), English yowl, and Ancient Greek ???? (iúz?, “shout”), derived from Proto-Indo-European *yu- (“shout for joy”). In this interpretation, the Hebrew term is instead a borrowing from an Indo-European language, hence ultimately of Proto-Indo-European origin, or an independent word with no etymological relation to the Latin word.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d?u?b??li?/

Noun

jubilee (plural jubilees)

1. (Jewish historical) A special year of emancipation supposed to be kept every fifty years, when farming was abandoned and Hebrew slaves were set free. [from 14th c.]
   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 120:

     in the old Israel, there had supposedly been a system of ‘Jubilee’, a year in which all land should go back to the family to which it had originally belonged and during which all slaves should be released.

2. A 25th, 40th, 50th, 60th or 70th anniversary. [from 14th c.]
3. (Catholicism) A special year (originally held every hundred years, then fifty, and then fewer) in which remission from sin could be granted as well as indulgences upon making a pilgrimage to Rome. [from 15th c.]
4. A time of celebration or rejoicing. [from 16th c.]
5. (obsolete) A period of fifty years; a half-century. [17th-18th c.]
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.5:

     How their faiths could decline so low, as to concede [...] that the felicity of their Paradise should consist in a Jubile of copulation, that is, a coition of one act prolonged unto fifty years.

6. An occasion of mass manumission from slavery.
   • 1865, Henry Clay Work, “Marching Through Georgia”:

     Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
     Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!

   • 1890, Levi C. McKinstry, “Lincoln’s White Name” in A Poetic Offering to John Greenleaf Whittier, page 101:

     The chains of that great power we broke;
     The burdened captives were set free,
     For Lincoln held the pen, whose stroke
     Proclaimed, the year of jubilee.

Derived terms

• silver jubilee
• ruby jubilee
• golden jubilee
• diamond jubilee
• platinum jubilee

Translations

References

English

Alternative forms

• cæremony, cærimony (both archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English cerymonye, from Latin caerimonia or caeremonia, later often cerimonia (“sacredness, reverence, a sacred rite”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s???m?ni/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s???mo?ni/
• Hyphenation: cer?e?mo?ny

Noun

ceremony (plural ceremonies)

1. A ritual, with religious or cultural significance.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book Six, Canto 8, pp. 463-464,^[1]

     To whom the Priest with naked armes full net

     Approching nigh, and murdrous knife well whet,

     Gan mutter close a certaine secret charme,

     With other diuelish ceremonies met:

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Numbers 9:3,^[2]

     In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep [the passover] in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it.

   • 1881, Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, London: Macmillan, Volume I, Chapter 1, p. 1,^[3]

     Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

2. An official gathering to celebrate, commemorate, or otherwise mark some event.

   a graduation ceremony, an opening ceremony

3. (uncountable) A formal socially established behaviour, often in relation to people of different ranks; formality.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, Scene 4,^[4]

     […] to feed were best at home;

     From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;

     Meeting were bare without it.

   • 1928, W. Somerset Maugham, “Miss King” in Ashenden, New York: Avon, 1943, p. 37,^[5]

     Monsieur Bridet, notwithstanding his costume and his evident harrassment, found in himself the presence of mind to remain the attentive manager, and with ceremony effected the proper introduction.

   • 1959, C. S. Forester, Hunting the Bismarck, London: Michael Joseph,^[6]

     They went into the bars and interrupted the drinking, hustling the men out without ceremony.

4. (uncountable) Show of magnificence, display, ostentation.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 752-756,^[7]

     Meanwhile the winged Heralds, by command

     Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony

     And trumpet’s sound, throughout the host proclaim

     A solemn council forthwith to be held

     At Pandemonium […]

   • 1829, Washington Irving, A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, Volume II, Chapter 46, p. 254,^[8]

     Immediately after her arrival, the queen rode forth to survey the camp and its environs: wherever she went, she was attended by a splendid retinue; and all the commanders vied with each other, in the pomp and ceremony with which they received her.

5. (obsolete) An accessory or object associated with a ritual.
   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act IV, Scene 1,^[9]

     […] his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man […]

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 2,^[10]

     […] Well, believe this,

     No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,

     Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,

     The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,

     Become them with one half so good a grace

     As mercy does.

6. (obsolete) An omen or portent.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 1,^[11]

     For he is superstitious grown of late,

     Quite from the main opinion he held once

     Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2,^[12]

     Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,

     Yet now they fright me.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• ceremony in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• ceremony at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “ceremony”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• ceremony in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Middle English

Noun

ceremony

1. Alternative form of cerymonye