What does Good Friday mean in English? This post first answers that question. Then we’ll briefly explain how diving a bit deeper into this or other words help us remember our foreign language vocabulary better. Then, scroll down and you’ll find how to say Good Friday in 20+ European languages and find that most languages name the day in one of three ways. But, there are some idiosyncratic outlier languages, as well!
Why Is It Called “Good” Friday?
As a kid, I remember being rather nonplussed as to why exactly Good Friday — arguably the saddest day in the Christian calendar — got its incongruous, upbeat name.
As it turns out, the “good” in Good Friday likely comes from an older meaning of the word “good” — something closer to “holy,” “pious,” or “sacred.”
Knowing that has enriched my understanding and, in a way, my experience of the day itself.
It helped me to take the underlying concept on board in a deeper way.
A Language Learning Takeaway
There’s a language learning nugget in that.
As you’ll know if you’ve been reading my emails or blog for a while, I’m a great advocate of learning vocabulary in the context of phrases, common word combinations (collocations), ready-made chunks.
But every now and then, it’s worth zooming in on a single word. Exploring its backstory. Its roots.
That little dig is another way of making a word “sticky.”
What Other Languages Call Good Friday
The word for Good Friday in different European languages reveals something about how each culture understands the meaning of the day.
Turns out that most European languages seem to go with one of three ideas:
1. “Holy Friday” (Romance Languages & Basque)
🇫🇷 French: Vendredi Saint (masc.)
🇮🇹 Italian: Venerdì Santo (masc.)
🇪🇸 Spanish: Viernes Santo (masc.)
🇵🇹 Portuguese: Sexta-feira Santa (fem.)
One of my intermediate languages is Basque. The Basque Country straddles the Pyrenees in southwest France and northern Spain.
So, it came as no surprise to me to discover that the Basque Good Friday, Ostiral Santua, also means “Holy Friday.”
2. “Long Friday” (Scandinavian & Finnish Languages)
In Scandinavian languages (and Finnish) Good Friday is known as “Long Friday” — a reference to the extended suffering of Christ and the solemnity of the day.
🇸🇪 Swedish: Långfredagen (common gender)
🇳🇴 Norwegian: Langfredag (masc.)
🇩🇰 Danish: Langfredag (common gender)
🇮🇸 Icelandic: Föstudagurinn langi (masc.)
🇫🇮 Finnish: Pitkäperjantai (no grammatical gender system)
3. “Great Friday” (Central & Eastern European Languages)
A group of languages spoken in a band across Central Europe use “Great Friday”:
🇵🇱 Polish: Wielki Piątek (masc.)
🇧🇾 Belarusian: Вялікая Пятніца / Vyalikaya Pyatnitsa (fem.)
🇭🇺 Hungarian: Nagypéntek
🇨🇿 Czech: Velký pátek (masc.)
🇸🇰 Slovak: Veľký piatok (masc.)
🇷🇴 Romanian: Vinerea Mare (fem.)
🇬🇷 Greek: Μεγάλη Παρασκευή / Megáli Paraskeví (fem.)
🇧🇬 Bulgarian and 🇷🇸 Serbian / 🇭🇷 Croatian also fall into this group. So do Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian.
Other Unique Variations
Beyond these three common “Good Friday” concepts, other languages give the name of the day a more idiosyncratic spin:
🇳🇱 In Dutch, the story with Goede Vrijdag (common gender) seems similar to English. The meaning of goede has evolved from “holy” to “good.”
🇷🇺 In Russian Good Friday Страстная Пятница / Strastnaya Pyatnitsa (fem.), meaning ‘Suffering’ or ‘Passion’ Friday (from strast = passion/suffering).
🇺🇦 The Ukrainian term for Good Friday is also “Passion Friday”: Страсна П’ятниця / Strasna Pyatnytsya (fem.).
Two of my more advanced languages take their own path:
🏴 In Welsh, we have Dydd Gwener y Groglith (masc.). That’s to say “the Friday of the lesson of the Cross” (Dydd Gwener = Friday; llith = lesson / Bible reading in church; crog = an old word for ‘cross’).
🇩🇪 And the German for Good Friday is Karfreitag (masc.). That comes from Old High German kara meaning “lament” or “grief.”
One Word, Many Windows
Looking at vocab in this way can open up a whole web of meaning — cultural, historical, even emotional.
So while we’re usually all about learning in the context of phrases, the occasional deep dive can bring up pearls. 🏆
It can enrich your understanding and make a word far more memorable.
Over to You
What does your target language call Good Friday?
Have you come across a variation not mentioned here?
Drop it in the comments below 👇
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