Other forms: gospels
A gospel is one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus. The gospel of Mark, read the gospel, the four gospels.
Matthew, Mark and Luke share so much material that they are called the synoptics, while John stands apart. Taken as gospel means accepted as certainly true. Gospel music is the American church tradition. The Old English means good news, a translation of the Greek.
1noungospelOne of the four accounts of the life of Jesus.
“The priest read a passage from the Gospel of Luke.”
gospel is a text.
Old English godspell means good news, God plus spell, a story — a translation of Greek euangelion.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰew-
Ancient Greek
εὐαγγέλιον — evangel
Ecclesiastical Latin
ēvangelium
Old English
godspell — gospel
Middle English
gospel
English, today
gospel
From Middle English gospel, gospell, godspel, godspell, goddspell, from Old English godspell (“gospel”), corresponding to God + spell, literally “the message of God”, believed to be an alteration of earlier gōdspell literally “good news”, used to translate ecclesiastical Latin bona annūntiātiō, itself a translation of Ecclesiastical Latin ēvangelium / Ancient Greek εὐαγγέλιον (“evangel”) literally “good news” (English evangel). Compare Old Saxon gōdspel and godspell (“gospel”), Old High German - and Middle High German gotspel (“gospel”), Icelandic guðspjall (“gospel”), and the modern calque Malayalam സുവിശേഷം.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA