English
God bless you
God bless you comes from Middle English God blesse you.
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500God blesse you
- Englishearliest quotation 1811God bless you
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500God blesse you
- Englishearliest quotation 1811God bless you
Earliest quotation: 1811, Jane Austen, London: […] C[harles] Roworth: “But she will be gained by some one else.…”
The story
A clause in the present subjunctive inherited intact from a time when English was freely productive of it. Diachronically it is not a shortening; synchronically it is often surface-analyzed as such; present-day English has a heavy need for the modal auxiliary (may) to ensure syntactic clarity, whereas earlier English could more easily drop it.
Every English word from Middle English God blesse you
Today it means
intj May God bless you; said as a short prayer, benediction, or valediction for the recipient; usually religiously; sometimes nonliterally but rhetorically or culturally.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle English God blesse you / God bless you