advent meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

advent

noun

/ˈæd.vɛnt/ · /ˈæd.vənt/

Etymology Borrowed from Latin adventus (“arrival, approach”).

Arrival; onset; a time when something first comes or appears; the time when it is approaching.

Death's dreadful advent1743, [Edward Young], “Night the Fifth. The Relapse. […]”, in The Complaint. Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality. Night the Fifth, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley […], and sold by M[ary] Cooper […], →OCLC:
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.1853, Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, in The Piazza Tales, New York: Dix, Edwards & Co, published 1856:

2 more examples

The car in which I had taken Olivia to dinner and then out to the cemetery — a historic vehicle, even a monument of sorts, in the history of fellatio's advent onto the Winesburg campus in the second half of the twentieth century — went careening off to the side...2008, Philip Roth, Indignation:
Berlin's six-decade career began before the advent of radio and ended during the height of Beatlemania.2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 2, 51-52:

verb

Etymology Borrowed from Latin adventus (“arrival, approach”).

To arrive or begin, especially at the first coming or appearance of something.

1869 Grove Berry. Ritualism; Part II of An Enquiry. Pub: LONGMANS, GREEN et al. But suppose we depart from the suggestion there made, and, leaving the idea of the status quo from which He advented to Earth, we rise with Solomon (Prov. viii), to some stasis which must be indefinite to us, are we not presumptuous if not even unpractical, Gnostical, and merely scholastic?
The new Democratic war-horse from Calaveras has lately advented in the Legislature with a little bill to change the name of Tretherick to Starbottle.1873, Francis Bret Harte, An episode of Fiddletown, and other sketches:

2 more examples

1978 Mohammed Ahmad Qureshi. Marriage and Matrimonial Remedies: A Uniform Civil Code for India Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad in Tarjuman-ul-Quran says that in the seventh century when Islam was advented males had uncontrolled rights.
2014 Adam Pryor. The god who lives. In the flesh, self and world are always coming-to-be, adventing, in an intimate reciprocity to one another.

Synonyms: arrival, approach, oncome, onset
Derived terms: advene, Advent, Adventist, Advent Sunday, adventual, Advent wreath, readvent
Related terms: advene, adventure, beginning, commencement, start

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.