Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of bondeziro
Coloured illustration of bondeziro
#2504 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

a good wish; greetings, best wishes

Word origin

Built inside Esperanto from bona ('good') and deziro ('a wish'), the noun of deziri, which came from French desirer and behind it Latin desiderare. German does the same job with Glückwunsch.

Origin
Esperanto compound
Root
bona + deziro
English cognates
desire, desideratum

Examples

.

Please accept my best wishes for the new year.

.

The letter ended with good wishes to the whole family.

.

Her friends sent many good wishes.

Two roots you already have, welded into the word you need at the end of every letter. Bona plus deziro, the noun from deziri, gives a good wish. Main root last as always, so the thing is a kind of wish and bon- says which kind. English has no single word for it and has to say best wishes or good wishes; German gets there in one with Glückwunsch, and Esperanto sits with German.

In practice it is nearly always plural. You send , not a single , in the same way English sends regards rather than a regard. The standard letter endings are koraj and korajn , and the verb that goes with it is or simply them. The related verb bondeziri also exists and takes the person in the dative sense with : bondeziras .

You will meet it first at a birthday. The festivals article has the awkward truth that there is no standard Esperanto Happy Birthday song, and that among the several texts clubs sing to the borrowed tune, one is simply . So the word turns up as an entire song lyric before it turns up as vocabulary, which is a good reason to know it.

Its opposite exists and is worth knowing. o is barely used, but , to curse, is the word for the real opposite act, and bondeziri sits against it neatly. There is also bonvolo, goodwill, which is a disposition rather than a thing you send.

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Esperanto · Free printables

bondeziro: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "bondeziro" (a good wish; greetings, best wishes): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 51.