Etymology

juneteenth

June·teenth
J8U1N1E1T1E1E1N1T1H4

Today it means: Also more fully as Juneteenth Day: the United States national holiday commemorating the end of slavery, observed on June 19. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

Blend of June + nineteenth, commemorating the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when Union Army General Gordon Granger (1821–1876) issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, to enforce President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862. The General Order stated that all previously enslaved people in Texas were now free. The word entered wider usage after becoming a federal holiday in 2021.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.