God bless you
intjEtymology
From Middle English God blesse you, God blisse you. A clause in the present subjunctive inherited intact from a time when English was freely productive of it. Diachronically it is not a shortening; synchronically it is often surface-analyzed as such; present-day English has a heavy need for the modal auxiliary (may) to ensure syntactic clarity, whereas earlier English could more easily drop it.
- derived from was freely productive of it
- derived from God blesse you
Definitions
May God bless you
May God bless you; said as a short prayer, benediction, or valediction for the recipient; usually religiously; sometimes nonliterally but rhetorically or culturally.
- I heard you helped them with clearing away the downed tree. God bless you! The Lord provides!
- You got that whole area cleaned up in one day? God bless you! I'll buy your coffee today!
Said to somebody who has sneezed, as a rhetorical response
Said to somebody who has sneezed, as a rhetorical response; alternative form of bless you.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for God bless you. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA