Word.ws English Dictionary

xmas

/ˈkɹɪs.məs/

xmas is the alternative form of Xmas.

Proper noun capitalized: Xmas

Xmas (countable and uncountable, plural Xmases or Xmasses)

  1. (abbreviation, informal) Abbreviation of Christmas.
    • In ye Xmas and Whitsuntide Vacations, ye Scholars study at a rate of an hour and a Quarter each day & all yt go home have proportionable Tasks set them...c. 1755, Bernard Ward, History of St. Edmund's college, Old Hall, page 303
    • A thousand thanks, merry Xmasses & happy New Years to you for yʳ delightful letter: […]1774 December 20, David Garrick, “Letters from David Garrick, to George Colman, the Elder”, in George Colman, the Younger, editor, Posthumous Letters, from Various Celebrated Men; Addressed to...

Verb capitalized: Xmas

Xmas (third-person singular simple present Xmass or Xmasses, present participle Xmasing or Xmassing, simple past and past participle Xmased or Xmassed)

  1. (abbreviation, informal) Abbreviation of Christmas.
    • N:Castle (Xmassing and wanted at play)1764 January 9, Josiah Wedgwood, private correspondence; quoted in Eliza Meteyard, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, from His Private Correspondence and Family Papers […], volume I, London: Hurst and...
    • I wᵈ not have you think yᵗ we have no Xmassing here; we have had as large a round of dinners at Pau as we could have at Welsbourn (tho perhaps (to me) not quite so pleasant).1788 January 3, Court Dewes, “Court Dewes, Esq., to Miss Port, at Windsor”, in Lady Llanover [i.e., Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover], editor, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville...

Noun capitalized: XMAs

XMAs

  1. (plural) plural of XMA

Forms of xmas

Noun
pluralxmases
Proper noun
pluralXmases
pluralXmasses
alternative formX'mas
alternative formX-mas
alternative formx-mas
alternative InternetXms
alternative form (archaic)Xtmas
Verb
third-person singular presentXmass
third-person singular presentXmasses
present participleXmasing
present participleXmassing
past participleXmased
pastXmased
past participleXmassed
pastXmassed

Origin of xmas

Attested in this form since 1755, and preceded by earlier forms such as X'temmas (1551) and Old English Χp̃es mæssa (1100), from Cristes mæsse, with abbreviation of Cristes by the symbol X, orthographic borrowing from Ancient Greek Χ (Kh, letter chi), from Χριστός (Khristós, “Christ”). By surface analysis, X (“Christ”) + -mas (“holiday”). In popular use since late 19th century. See Wikipedia for more information.

Words formed from xmas

Phrases with xmas

Questions about xmas

What is xmas the alternative form of?
Xmas is the alternative form of Xmas.
What part of speech is xmas?
Xmas can be a proper noun, a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce xmas?
Xmas is pronounced /ˈkɹɪs.məs/.

Words near xmas in the dictionary

  1. XLRs
  2. XLS
  3. XLT
  4. XM
  5. XMA
  6. xmas
  7. Xmas Day
  8. Xmas Days
  9. Xmas Island
  10. Xmas tree
  11. Xmas trees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xmas (page history and authors); Xmas (page history and authors); XMAs (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Xmas.wav.

Cite this entry: “xmas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/xmas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.