sele means happiness, fortune.
sele is pronounced /siːl/.
Why “sele” is a great word
An opportune moment or timely happiness, now archaic. From Middle English sel, from Old English sǣl ('time, occasion, happiness'), from Proto-West Germanic *sālī, from Proto-Germanic *sēliz. Unlike 'bliss,' which implies a perfected spiritual state, or 'occasion,' which neutrally marks any point in time, sele carries the specific weight of the auspicious—the sense that fortune has aligned with the clock. It is the sudden break in weather that allows the harvest, the unexpected letter arriving when hope had thinned, or the perfect alignment of circumstance and courage in a silent moment of decision. The word remembers what modern happiness forgets: that joy is not merely felt, but met.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English sel (“fortune, bliss; a unit of time”), from Old English sǣl (“time, occasion, an opportune time, opportunity, happiness, prosperity, good times”), from Proto-West Germanic *sālī, from Proto-Germanic *sēliz. Related to silly.
noun
- Happiness, fortune.
- The right time or occasion for something, an opportune moment, season
- Greeting, salutation.e.g.“I found my friend honest Pritchard smoking his morning pipe at the front door, and after giving him the sele of the day, […]” — 1862, George Borrow, chapter XXXV, in Wild Wales Its People‚ Language and Scenery (Fiction), Read Central, archived from the original on 31 Oct 2013:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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