[a. OFr. advent, literary form of auvent:—L. adventus arrival, f. advenī-re to come to: see ADVENE. Applied in Christian literature specially to the Coming of the Savior; whence, in the ecclesiastical calendar, the name of the period preceding the festival of the Nativity, the earliest sense in Eng. (10th or 11th c.) and the only sense in French. In the middle of the 15th c. it became in Eng. also the proper title of the Incarnation; whence extended to our Lord’s anticipated Second Advent as Judge (as already in Latin, in Tertullian), and to that of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; in modern times partly as an extension of this, partly with reference to the primary sense of ‘arrival’ in L., it has been used of any important arrival, or even for arrival simply.]
1. In the ecclesiastical calendar, the season immediately preceding the festival of the Nativity, now including the four preceding Sundays.
1099–1121. O. E. Chron. (Laud MS.), anno 1099. Osmund biscop of Searbyriʓ innon Aduent forðferde. Ibid. (a. 1121), anno 963. On þe fyrste sunnondæʓ of Aduent.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 3. Þesse þre wuken, þe ben cleped aduent, þat is seggen on englis ure louerd ihesu cristes to cume.
1297. R. Glouc., 463. Gret frost ther com in Aduent.
1482. Monk of Evesham (1869), 49. Y fastyd the dayes of aduent.
1599. Thynne, Animadv. (1865), 40. Nowell … is that tyme whiche is properlye called the Advente.
1611. Cotgr., Advents de Noel, the time of advent; before Christmas.
1704. Nelson, Fest. & Fasts, ii. (1739), 27. Advent Sundays, The four Sundays that preceed the Great Festival of our Saviour’s Nativity.
1860. Trench, Serm. Westm. Abb., i. 1. All the services of this Advent season.
2. The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior of the world; the Incarnation. Hence his expected Second Coming as Judge, and the Coming of the Holy Spirit as at Pentecost.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., ii. 7. Afore þe Advente of criste.
1582. N. T. (Rheims), 1 Thess. iv. 15. Vve vvhich liue, vvhich are remaining in the aduent [other versions coming] of our Lord.
1636. Prynne, Unbish. Tim. & Tit. (1661), 63. Priests and Presbyters who … imprecate the Lords Advent to the Eucharist.
1664. Jer. Taylor, Confirm., 43 (R.). The perfective Unction of Chrism gives to him the advent of the Holy Spirit.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 866. Who, could they see The dawn of thy last advent, long desir’d, Would creep into the bowels of the hills.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 605. On the nearness of the final Messianic Advent, the Jewish and the Christian world were at one.
3. By extension, Any important or epoch-making arrival. In modern usage applied poetically or grandiloquently to any arrival. (This use is unknown to Johnson, 1755, and Todd, 1818.)
1742. Young, Night Th., V. 906. Death’s dreadful Advent is the Mark of Man.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., Introd. § 4, 5. The advent of the Normans.
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 50. Too much interested … to notice the advent of another passenger.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., vi. 21. Expecting still his advent home.
