2687: God-Bye & Other Religious Farewells Apr 29, 2024

Like the word ‘goodbye’, which is a contraction of “God be with you [/ye]”, the French ‘adiue’ is from the full line “a Dieu vos comant” (“I commend you to God”). This is why historically this  was used as a greeting, as well as a farewell, which in both cases is now the primary usage. Many other Romance languages have such a line from the Latin equivalent ‘ad Deum’, like the Spanish ‘adios’, but so does German with the common farewell ‘tschüß’ (also spelt ‘tscheuss’) from the French ‘adieu’ making the most common farewell term in several languages religious in nature, however unrecognizably.