This is the season for giving thanks. An attitude of gratitude will get us through the end of the year and ensure that we begin the New Year the right way.

This is what the word “thanks” looks like around the world.

Even though we give thanks in English, we express gratitude. According to Merriam-Webster, the word gratitude comes to us from Middle English, from Anglo-French or Medieval Latin; Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus grateful. The words gracias (Spanish), gràcies (Catalan) and grazie (Italian) track closest to that root. Related words in Spanish are agradecer (to thank) and agradecido/a (thankful). All of these seems to express thanks in terms of pleasing, grateful. French and Portuguese went different roots, expressing wages, reward, favor and obliged respectively.

Be thankful we have so many ways to express gratitude.