Added 9 October 2026
gospel
/ˈɡɒspəl/ noun
In Latin: evangelium Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about gospel at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
- The four books in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that tell the story of Christ's life and teachings.
-
An unquestionable truth.
his word was gospel
- Folk music consisting of a genre of a cappella music originating with Black slaves in the United States and featuring call and response; influential on the development of other genres of popular music (especially soul).
Origin
From Middle English gospel, gospell, godspel, godspell, goddspell, from Old English godspell (“gospel”), corresponding to God + spell (“talk, tale, story”), literally “the message of God”, believed to be an alteration of earlier *gōdspell (literally “good news”), used to translate ecclesiastical Latin bona annūntiātiō, itself a translation of Ecclesiastical Latin ēvangelium / Ancient Greek εὐαγγέλιον (euangélion, “evangel”, literally “good news”) (English evangel). Compare Old Saxon gōdspel and godspell (“gospel”), Old High German and Middle High German gotspel (“gospel”), Icelandic guðspjall (“gospel”), and the modern calque Malayalam സുവിശേഷം (suviśēṣaṁ).
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)