anniversary

The story

1. Anglo-Normananniversarie
2. Old Frenchanniversaire
3. Middle Frenchanniversaire
4. Proto-Indo-European*h₂et-
5. Proto-Indo-European*h₂etnós
6. Proto-Italic*atnos?
7. Latinannus
8. Proto-Indo-European*wert-
9. Proto-Indo-European*wr̥ttós
10. Proto-Italic*worssos
11. Latinvorsus
12. Latinversus
13. Classical Latinanniversārius
14. Middle Englishanniversary
15. English todayanniversary

From Middle English anniversary, annyversarie, annyverary, annyversarye, anyversarye, from Anglo-Norman aniversarie, anniversarie and Anglo-Norman, Old French, and Middle French aniversaire, anniversaire (modern French anniversaire) and their etymon Classical Latin anniversārius (“yearly”, in Medieval Latin also used as a noun, meaning “anniversary”, along with the neuter form anniversārium), from annus (“year”) + vertō (“to turn”, formed using its past participial stem, vers-). The verb is from the noun.

First known use, by meaning

• from late 12th or early 13th c. A day that is an exact number of years (to the day) since a given significant event occurred. Often preceded by an ordinal number indicating the number of years.
• from late 12th or early 13th c. Such a day that commemorates a wedding.
• from late 19th c. A day subsequent in time to a given event by some significant period other than a year (especially as prefixed by the amount of time in question).
• from early 17th c. Lasting for or completed in a year.
• mid 16th – late 19th c. Synonym of yearly (“occurring once a year; recurring annually”).
• from mid 19th c. To mark, commemorate, or celebrate the anniversary of (something).
• from late 19th c. To mark, commemorate, or celebrate an anniversary, especially a wedding anniversary.
• from 1990s To pass the anniversary of (something), in the context of a company’s yearly financial report.