What’s up with the “syne” in “Auld Lang Syne”? On etymological times long past

As December 31 flips over to January 1 each year, many of us sing “Auld Lang Syne,” the Scottish song whose words are credited to the immortal Robert Burns in the 1780s.

(We also watch a ball drop, whose maritime clock-setting origins I explored last year.)

For “Auld Lang Syne,” Burns pulled from older poems—just as its melody, composer unknown, draws from older tunes. The words and music first appeared together in the 1790s. Incorporated into the Scottish New Year’s celebration of Hogmanay, “Auld Lang Syne” was popularized by bandleader Guy Lombardo as part of a long-running New Year’s Eve radio broadcast starting in 1929.

Fun fact: Hogmanay is probably from the French aguillanneuf, a French call for a New Year’s gift.

As we remind ourselves, oh, once a year, the Scottish English auld lang syne—idiomatically meaning “times long past” or “the good old times”—literally translates to “old long since.”

So, the Scottish syne (rhyming with fine) is equivalent to the English since, and they are indeed related.

If syne and since are nostalgic for etymological times long past, they pine for sithen. It’s with sithen that our lexical countdown to syne—and since—begins.

Fast Mash

If you’re dashing off to a New Year’s Eve party, here’s a handy overview:

• The Scottish English syne means “since”
• Both syne and since ultimately derive from the Old English sithen
• Meaning “then, after,” sithen is based on an Old English phrase for “after that” or “later than that”
• Sithen was contracted to sin, which became syne in Scottish English
• The Scottish syne may have also been influenced by an Old Norse cousin to sithen
• Elsewhere in English, sin took on adverbial genitive suffix -s and was later spelled since
• This adverbial genitive suffix repurposed an Old English genitive case ending to form adverbs
• Many other words feature this suffix, including once, twice, always, hence, afterwards, and even against, amidst, and Mondays, as in I work Mondays

Old English sithen: root of syne and since

Now obsolete, sithen was an Old English word that served, like its derivative syne and since, many grammatical roles: adverb, conjunction, and preposition. Also like its derivatives, sithen had many meanings, including “then,” “afterwards,” “next,” and “from a past time until now.”

Recorded in Old English and with cognates across Germanic languages, sithen was once written as siððan or siþþan, among other forms. These spellings feature two lost letters: eth (ð) and thorn (þ). They represented the sounds now spelled as th. 

Those double consonants don’t come from nowhere, as sithen combines the Old English words sīþ and þan, meaning “after that.” The core sense of sīþ was “late.” It is likely descended from the same Germanic root that gives us side. Meanwhile, þan is based on either a dative or instrumental case of þæt, the neuter form of the demonstrative pronoun that.

Oh, back in the day, that was no mere that. It had masculine and feminine counterparts, sē and sēo, respectively, and morphed into various grammatical cases and plurals.

Rubbing your temples? That’s all just bygone grammar. 

The English language effectively waved all that case stuff away, and only remnants of that complexity survive today. Of course, English is complex in ways today that would absolutely flummox Beowulf.

Sithen faded into obscurity starting in the 1600s. You may occasionally encounter its common shortened form, sith, in Shakespeare.

Sithen was also contracted into sin, and Scottish English transformed sin into syne. Syne is attested as early as 1425, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Syne of the times?

There’s a trio of similar words once used in Scottish English that hail from Scandinavia: hyne, thyne, and whyne.

• Hyne. Equivalent to hence, from hethen, related to he, here.
• Thyne. Equivalent to thence, from thethen, related to the, there.
• Whyne. Equivalent to whence, from whethen, related to who, where.

This pattern suggests the Scottish syne may also have been influenced by its Old Norse analog, síðan, perhaps as through a Middle English variant, sethen.

Now, hence, thence, whence: does this pattern reveal anything about since? Yes!  

From sin to since: the adverbial genitive suffix -s

Elsewhere in the British Isles, sin wasn’t shortened for long, as it was itself expanded with a special suffix, -s.

The special suffix? A so-called adverbial genitive. 

OK, maybe I encouraged you to stop rubbing your temples too soon. More grammar incoming.

So, neuter datives and all that: due to a mix of forces and over the course of centuries, English had shed most of its inflectional ending by the 1200s.

Personal pronouns—think I, my, me—preserve inflected forms. As do plurals and possessives, for which the letter s does double duty. 

Today, English marks possession by tacking, in a few configurations, an apostrophe and the suffix –s onto a noun or pronoun. It also uses of.

This possessive marker likely descends from the genitive singular ending, -es, used for  certain masculine and neuter genitive singular nouns and adjectives in Old English.

The apostrophe—developed by a French printer around 1500—was apparently introduced in early Modern English to indicate the omission of the e in that genitive –es. Voila: the English possessive.

Genitive case: As I suspect you’ve inferred by now, the genitive is a grammatical case used to show possession or close association. 

English also repurposed this genitive -s marker to form adverbs. For instance, I work nights or I work Mondays. Nights and Mondays are adverbs here, and they go all the way back to Old English!

On the model of some of the adverbs, English (redundantly) added the adverbial genitive suffix –s  to existing adverbs. 

And that’s how we get since. 

1. Sithen was contracted to sin
2. The adverbial suffix –s was added to sin

(Well, why didn’t you just say that, John?)

Evidenced as synnes by 1425, starting around the early 1500s since, along with other words ending in an unvoiced s, were spelled with a final -ce. This includes other words featuring the adverbial genitive:

• once
• twice
• thrice
• hence
• thence
• whence 

Some other familiar examples of words with the adverbial genitive are: afterwards, always, longways, forwards, and towards.

If you’ve ever come across the expression must needs, as in I must needs study more Old English grammar, that needs is also adverbial.

Note:

1. Always et al. are spelled with a final -s. That’s because it’s voiced—meaning the vocal cords vibrate while it’s articulated.
2. Many of these words have an s-less sibling, too, such as toward.
3. Not all of the words formed with the adverb suffix are adverbs!

But English isn’t finished with us yet.

Onto some functional words, like again, amid, among, and while, English added that-s—and then topped it off with a -t, yielding against, amidst, amongst, and whilst, among others.

As I discussed in my post on again, this -t has no etymological meaning. It is called excrescent, intrusive, or parasitic, typically resulting from phonetic circumstances and lexical associations.

***

Whew.

If you made it here, it’s probably 2027 already! 

But ah, we have 2026 yet. My trusty friends, let’s take a cup o’ kindness for old etymological time’s sake—and toast to a New Year overbrimming with blessings!