See also
Look up xoxo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Hugs and kisses, abbreviated in the Anglosphere as XO or XOXO, is an informal term used for expressing sincerity, faith, love, or good friendship at the end of a written letter, email or text message.
The earliest attestation of the use of either x or o to indicate kisses identified by the Oxford English Dictionary appears in the English novellist Florence Montgomery's 1878 book Seaforth, which mentions "This letter [...] ends with the inevitable row of kisses,—sometimes expressed by × × × × ×, and sometimes by o o o o o o, according to the taste of the young scribbler". Here it appears that x and o are both ways to indicate a kiss. (Earlier versions of the dictionary identified an example from 1763, one Gil. White signing off a letter with "I am with many a xxxxxxx and many a Pater noster and Ave Maria, Gil. White". This has, however, since been reinterpreted as an indication of blessings rather than kisses, perhaps evoking the Christian sign of the cross.) [1] : §6 [2]
Nothing more is known about the origins of x and o meaning 'hugs' or 'kisses'. A 2014 article in The Washington Post that drew on interviews with scholars noted that "the Internet abounds with origin theories" yet that "there is no definitive answer to how a cross came to mean a kiss" and even that "less is known about how 'o' came to signify a hug". [2]
Speculations include that the use of x to indicate a kiss was transferred from earlier symbolic uses of the letter. Allegedly, in the Middle Ages, a Christian cross might be drawn on documents or letters to mean sincerity, faith, and honesty; the sign was certainly sometimes used in place of a signature. [3] Unscholarly speculations sometimes extend to the idea that after a cross was written at the end of a document, the writer might kiss it as a show of their sincerity. [4] The Greek word for Christ, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, gave rise to the practice of using the Latin letter X as an abbreviation for 'Christ' (similar to the more elaborate Chi Rho symbol). [1] : §10 Supposedly, this was then kissed in this tradition of displaying a sacred oath. [5] [2]
There is speculation on the Internet that the 'O' is of North American descent: when arriving in the United States, Jewish immigrants, most of whose first language was Yiddish, would use an 'O' to sign documents, thus not using the sign of the cross, and shop keepers would often use an 'O' when signing documents, in place of an 'X'. [6] [7]
Christ, used by Christians as both a name and a title, unambiguously refers to Jesus. It is also used as a title, in the reciprocal usage "Christ Jesus", meaning "the Messiah Jesus" or "Jesus the Anointed", and independently as "the Christ". The Pauline epistles, the earliest texts of the New Testament, often call Jesus "Christ Jesus" or just "Christ".
A cross is a compound geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a saltire in heraldic terminology.
The labarum was a vexillum that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧, a christogram formed from the first two Greek letters of the word "Christ" – Chi (χ) and Rho (ρ). It was first used by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great.
X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ex, plural exes.
An interpunct·, also known as an interpoint, middle dot, middot, centered dot or centred dot, is a punctuation mark consisting of a vertically centered dot used for interword separation in Classical Latin. It appears in a variety of uses in some modern languages.
Ø is a letter used in the Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Southern Sámi languages. It is mostly used as to represent the mid front rounded vowels, such as and, except for Southern Sámi where it is used as an diphthong.
The tilde is a grapheme ⟨˜⟩ or ⟨~⟩ with a number of uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish tilde, which in turn came from the Latin titulus, meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in combination with a base letter. Its freestanding form is used in modern texts mainly to indicate approximation.
Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas. It is sometimes pronounced, but Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation. The 'X' comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós, which became Christ in English. The suffix -mas is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass.
A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" for "God", or fudge for fuck.
The holy kiss is an ancient traditional Christian greeting, also called the kiss of peace or kiss of charity, and sometimes the "brother kiss", or the "sister kiss". Such greetings signify a wish and blessing that peace be with the recipient, and besides their spontaneous uses they have certain ritualized or formalized uses long established in Christian liturgy.
Scribal abbreviations, or sigla, are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse.
Waw is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic wāwو, Aramaic waw 𐡅, Hebrew vavו, Phoenician wāw 𐤅, and Syriac waw ܘ.
Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. This pair of letters is used as a Christian symbol, and is often combined with the Cross, Chi Rho or other Christian symbols. A and Z share the similarity with alpha and omega. The Hebrew equivalent is alef and tau.
A Christogram is a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, traditionally used as a religious symbol within the Christian Church.
Aleph is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic ʾalifا, Aramaic ʾālap 𐡀, Hebrew ʾālefא, North Arabian 𐪑, Phoenician ʾālep 𐤀, Syriac ʾālap̄ ܐ. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez ʾälef አ.
Ch is a digraph in the Latin script. It is treated as a letter of its own in the Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Ladino, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian, Japanese, Latynka, and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. Formerly ch was also considered a separate letter for collation purposes in Modern Spanish, Vietnamese, and sometimes in Polish; now the digraph ch in these languages continues to be used, but it is considered as a sequence of letters and sorted as such.
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner". The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life", and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.
The instrument of Jesus' crucifixion is generally taken to have been composed of an upright wooden beam to which was added a transom, thus forming a "cruciform" or T-shaped structure.
Kike, also known as K-word, is an ethnic slur directed at Jewish people.
The crucifixion of Jesus was the death of Jesus by being nailed to a cross. It occurred in 1st-century Judaea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, and later attested to by other ancient sources. Scholars nearly universally accept the historicity of Jesus's crucifixion, although there is no consensus on the details.
The custom goes back to the early Christian era, when a cross mark or "X" was the same as a sworn oath. The cross referred to the cross of Calvary and the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Xristos.
The custom goes back to the early Christian era, when a cross mark or "X" was the same as a sworn oath. The cross referred to the cross of Calvary and the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Xristos.
In The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten, it is noted that illiterate immigrants (or those who did not know Roman-English letters) would generally sign entry forms with an "X" but Jews preferred an "O" to avoid making something that looked like a cross. Also, shopkeepers and salesmen would similarly sign receipts with a circle. Could this be the origin of the "O"?