Hevene

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic Middle English spelling of heaven, the divine realm where God and the blessed dwell ; the visible sky arching above the earth
2. The spiritual place of God and the saved, an old spelling of heaven ; the open expanse of air and sky overhead
3. A medieval form of heaven meaning the holy abode of the divine and the faithful ; the celestial vault seen above the world

Etymology: Middle English "hevene" is the ancestor of modern "heaven," and its story is mostly one of spelling and sound. It descends from Old English "heofon" (also spelled "heofone"), a word shared with other early Germanic languages, and in the Old English period it was a plural-looking noun used for the sky and the realm above it. The "-en" ending in the Middle English spelling reflects a Old English dative or plural form, which was carried over into the later spelling as the word settled into its single modern shape. The word's sound changed over centuries. The "eo" in Old English "heofon" was a diphthong that gradually simplified, and the "f" between vowels softened into a "v" sound in Middle English, which is why spellings like "hevene" appear. The Old English "f" and the Middle English "v" were often written interchangeably, so the spelling shifted several times before the modern "heaven" became standard in the early modern period.