Other forms: joys
Joy is great and pure happiness. Not amusement or contentment — the kind that lifts you off the ground.
It is a stronger and more serious word than happiness, and it keeps company with births, reunions and religion. Christmas carols are full of it. English gives it several set phrases: to your great joy, jump for joy, and the sad compound bittersweet feeling named in joy and sorrow together. British informal speech has a curious extra use, since any joy? simply means did you have any luck?
1nounjoyA feeling of great happiness.
“There were tears of joy at the gate.”
2nounsuccessSuccess or luck, in informal questions.
“Any joy with the landlord?”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: delight
Joy comes through Old French from Latin gaudium, from gaudēre, to be glad. The Latin plural gaudia was mistaken for a feminine singular on the way into French, so joy is strictly a bundle of joys.
Middle English
joye
English, today
joy
Built from
From Middle English joye. The noun is from Middle English joye, borrowed from Old French joie, from Latin gaudia, neuter plural (mistaken as feminine singular) of Latin gaudium (“joy”), from gaudēre (“to be glad, rejoice”). a doublet of jo and gaudy. Displaced native ġefēa. The interjection is from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA