May

• Ma (abbreviation)
• (female given name): Mae

From Middle English May, Mai, from Old French mai, from Latin Māius (“Maia's month”), from Maia, a Roman earth goddess.

• enPR: mā, IPA^(key): /meɪ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ

May (countable and uncountable, plural Mays)

1. The fifth month of the Gregorian calendar, following April and preceding June.
   • Before 1789, "Bonny Barbara Allen," traditional ballad, collected in Francis James Child and George Lyman Kittridge (1886), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. II, part II, p. 277:

     All in the merry month of May, / When green leaves they was springing, / This young man on his death-bed lay, / For the love of Barbara Allen.

2. A female given name, usually pet name for Mary and Margaret, reinforced by the month and plant meaning.
   • 1856 E. D. E. N. Southworth, The Widow's Son, T. B. Peterson (1867), page 210:

     […] I will not send Owen's Lily May to the almshouse." "Lily―what?" demanded Mrs. Morley rather sharply, for she was half provoked with what she mentally called Amy's whim of keeping the outcast child when she might send it to the asylum. "Lily May," said Amy, smiling. "Her name is Mary, and we called her first Little Mary, and then Little May. But Owen calls her Lily May."

   • 1982, Ruth Rendell, The Fever Tree and Other Stories, Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 119:

     Their parents named them June and May because their birthdays occurred in those months. […] May was like the time of year in which she had been born, changeable, chilly and warm by turns, sullen yet able to know and show loveliness that couldn't last.

   • 2010, Margaret Forster, Isa & May, Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 5:

     It's an awkward name: Isamay, pronounced Is-a-may. Isa is my paternal grandmother's name (shortened from Isabel) and May my maternal grandmother's (it comes, somehow, from Margaret). The amalgamation is, as you see, strictly alphabetical. Life, I feel, would have been much easier if they had chosen Maybel.

3. A surname from Middle English.
4. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A former settlement in Amador County, California.
   2. An unincorporated community in Lemhi County, Idaho.
   3. An unincorporated community in McDonald County, Missouri.
   4. A small town in Harper County, Oklahoma.
   5. An unincorporated community in Brown County, Texas.
   6. An unincorporated community in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
   7. A number of townships in the United States, listed under May Township.

• May (or Mae) is often used in conjoined names (e.g., Lillie Mae, Katie Mae, Fannie Mae).

• Cinco de Mayo

• (Gregorian calendar months) Gregorian calendar month; January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December ^{(Category: en:Gregorian calendar months)}

• Amy, MYA, Mya, Yam, mya, yam

From English May, from Middle English, from Old English, from Old French mai, from Latin māius (“Maia's month”), from Maia, a Roman earth goddess, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *magya (“she who is great”), from Proto-Indo-European base *meg- (“great”).

May

1. a female given name from English
2. a surname from English

For quotations using this term, see Citations:May.

May

1. May

• (Gregorian calendar months) Janueri, Veverueri, Maji, Epereli, May, June, Jiulai, Okosita, Seviteba, Okotova, Noveba, Tiseba ^{(Category: fj:Months)}

May m (plural Mays)

1. May (month)

• French: mai
  • Guianese Creole: mè
  • Haitian Creole: me
  • → English: may
  • → Iranian Persian: مه‎ (me)

From English May.

May

1. a female given name

From English May.

May c (genitive Mays)

1. a female given name

Borrowed from English May.

May

1. a female given name from English

From may (“lucky”). Compare Hạnh with the same meanings.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [maj˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [maj˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ma(ː)j˧˧]
• Homophone: may

May

1. a female given name