I used the word heyday in a post and got to wondering what it’s origin was; I guessed it might have been something to do with gathering in hay, making haystacks, and preparing for the winter while the sun was still warm and bright. Then I wondered if maybe it was to do with a religious festival – a high or maybe hi-day, high days and holidays/holy days sprang to mind. Maybe, I thought it might even be a contraction of Holy Day. These days it means a time of greatest success, or vigour, or strength, the prime of life even.
I looked it up, and strangely, six hundred years ago, it came from ‘an exclamation of playfulness, cheerfulness, or surprise’, something like heyda!; there was the ‘hi!’, ‘hey!’ part of the word, and then the second syllable, ‘da’, which got interpreted as ‘day’. There is a similar word in other north European languages, in the Dutch heidaar, German heida and Danish. However, the word might be much older than that; it might come from a Greek word meaning healthy, form an even older root meaning life or to live. It could have had its origin in ancient Hebrew, or early middle eastern languages, and meaning something like ‘good, strong life!’ or it could have been an affirmative oath, swearing by the life of someone.
So… nothing to do with hay or haystacks, religious festivals or holy days… Isn’t English marvellous, that it has so many different ingredients to make it such an expressive and varied language!
Lois Elsden 