Celebrating

How to spell celebrating

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce celebrating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does celebrating mean?

1. verbMarking a happy occasion or achievement with enjoyment, festivity, or special activity.

Celebrating in a sentence

• The whole office is celebrating the successful launch with cake this afternoon.

• They are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary with a quiet dinner.

Where does celebrating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb celebrare, meaning 'to frequent, to honour, or to make widely known', which itself was built on the adjective celeber, meaning 'frequented', 'crowded', or 'renowned'. The underlying idea was a place or event thronged with people, and from that crowded gathering the sense slid toward the public honouring of a person, festival, or rite. English took the verb 'celebrate' through Latin in the late 1400s and early 1500s, at first with strong religious overtones of solemnly performing a ceremony such as Mass. The cheerful party sense of marking a happy occasion grew up alongside it later. The same celeber root also gives us 'celebrity', literally a state of being widely talked about, and remembering that link helps fix the single 'l' and the 'ebr' cluster that writers sometimes scramble.

How the word is built

• celebr- (from Latin celeber: frequented, renowned)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle suffix)