Lent: [OE] The etymological meaning of Lent is ‘long days’. It comes from *langgitīnaz, a prehistoric West Germanic compound formed from *lanngaz ‘long’ and an element *tīnadenoting ‘day’. This signified originally ‘spring’, an allusion to the lengthening days at that time of year. It passed into Old English as lencten, which became Middle English lenten, but in the 13th century the -en was dropped from the noun, leaving Lenten to function as an adjective. By this time too the secular sense ‘spring’ was fast dying out, having been usurped by the application of Lent to the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter. => long[Lent etymology, Lent origin, 英语词源]