Spring

The origin of some other terms is also clear; yet a word that has existed in the language for many centuries may change its pronunciation so drastically that light at best comes from the earliest recorded form. Today only the ecclesiastic sense of Lent is current, but in the past it was the main word for “spring.” Lent surfaced as lencten, that is, lengten: the season got its name because in spring days lengthen. Below, we will return to the second syllable of the Old English noun (-ten). Here it will be enough to mention German Lenz, a cognate of Engl. Lent, and its exact counterpart. German dialects have preserved -g- after -n-: compare Langsi, Längsi, and so forth. Lenz is a common German family name. Those who had the good (and nowadays rare) luck to study physics at school will remember the Joule-Lenz Law.

And lente is how you say spring in Dutch.