What did “goodbye” (Japanese “gubbai”) originally mean?

“Goodbye” is the English word for parting. In Japanese it is familiar as guddobai or gubbai (グッドバイ, グッバイ), from the titles of films, songs and more.

Look at it closely, though, and it is a little puzzling. “Good” means good, but what is “bye”? “Good, farewell” does not quite make sense. In fact, “goodbye” is a long prayer squeezed down into a single word.

Originally, “God be with you”

“Goodbye” comes from the phrase “God be with ye.” Ye is an old form of “you,” and the phrase means “May God be with you.” It was a wish for the safety of someone setting out on a journey or someone you were parting from.

Said day after day, this long farewell grew shorter and shorter. “God be with ye” became something like “God b’wye,” and then shrank further into something close to “godbye.” In every language, the words used most often tend to wear down and shorten.

A letter from 1573

One well-known early record of the shortened form is a letter written in 1573 by the English scholar Gabriel Harvey. Harvey was a Cambridge scholar, also known as a friend of the poet Edmund Spenser.

In that letter appears the word “godbwyes.” In a witty line, Harvey says that in return for a “gallon” of godbwyes from his correspondent, he gives back a “pottle” of howdyes. Howdye was a greeting shortened from “How do ye,” and a pottle was an old liquid measure equal to half a gallon. Measuring out greetings as if they were wine is a very scholarly joke.

So by the second half of the 16th century, the shortened farewell from “God be with ye” was already familiar enough to be the stuff of jokes in letters.

How “God” became “good”

So why did “God” turn into “good”?

English has many greetings that begin with “good”: “good morning,” “good night,” “good day.” Godbye came to be felt as one of this family, and at some point “God” was replaced by “good,” or so it is thought. Words often change shape this way, pulled toward other words of similar meaning.

That is how “goodbye” came about and gradually settled in. The hyphenated spelling “good-bye” was also widely used for a long time.

What is interesting is that “goodbye” then shrank further into “bye” and “bye-bye.” Bye, originally no more than a remnant of “be with ye,” now means “farewell” all on its own.

Prayers in farewells around the world

English is not the only language in which a prayer became a farewell. French adieu means “to God,” and Spanish adiós likewise comes from words meaning “to God.” Both carry the feeling of entrusting the other person to God: “May God protect you.”

That is quite different from the Japanese sayōnara, which grew out of a phrase meaning “if that is how it is.” Perhaps farewell words reflect what each culture has valued most at the moment of parting.