gala.
Celebratory; festive.
Meaning & usage
Celebratory; festive.
Where this word comes from
From French gala, or directly from that word's etymon, which is either Italian gala, or Spanish gala, both meaning "festive occasion", and derived from Old French gale (“rejoicing”). (The French word likely kept the final -a to avoid homophony with gale (“scabies”).) Ultimately cognate to gallant and hence probably from Frankish *wala (“good, well”).
Pomp, show, or festivity.
A competition.
a swimming gala
A showy and festive party.
A red-skinned variety of eating apple.
Where this word comes from
From French gala, or directly from that word's etymon, which is either Italian gala, or Spanish gala, both meaning "festive occasion", and derived from Old French gale (“rejoicing”). (The French word likely kept the final -a to avoid homophony with gale (“scabies”).) Ultimately cognate to gallant and hence probably from Frankish *wala (“good, well”).
A member of an androgynous class of priests of the Sumerian goddess Inanna.
Where this word comes from
Learned borrowing from Sumerian 𒍑𒆪 (gala), related to Akkadian 𒍑𒆪 (kalû). A connection to the similar Phrygian and Roman priests of Cybele called gallae or galli has been suggested, but evidence is lacking.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.