Other forms: celebrated, celebrating, celebrates
To celebrate is to do something enjoyable to mark a special day or a success. Celebrate a birthday, celebrate the win, we should celebrate.
It works with and without an object: celebrate an anniversary, or just let's celebrate. There is a second, more formal sense meaning to praise publicly — a book celebrating the work of local weavers — and a third, religious one: a priest celebrates mass. Note celebrated as an adjective, meaning famous and admired, which is quite separate from celebrating anything, and celebrity, which comes from the same root and now means fame itself as well as the person.
1verbcelebrateTo do something enjoyable to mark an occasion.
“They celebrated with a takeaway and an early night.”
synonyms: mark, commemorate
2verbpraiseTo praise something publicly.
“The exhibition celebrates a century of local photography.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
celebrate is a way of marking an occasion.
Latin celebrare meant to frequent or to honour in numbers, from celeber, crowded or much-visited. Celebrating was originally something a crowd did, which is why celebrating alone still feels slightly odd.
Latin
celebrātus
Middle English
celebraten
English, today
celebrate
Built from
From Middle English celebraten, from celebrat(e) + -en, Latin celebrātus, perfect passive participle of celebrō (“frequent, go to in great numbers, celebrate, honor, praise”) (see -ate), from celeber (“frequented, populous”). Displaced native fæġnian and frēolsian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA