Etymology: < French jubilé (14th cent. in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter), in Spanish jubileo , Italian giubbileo , < late Latin jūbilaeus (Vulgate, etc.), used as noun ‘jubilee’, but properly an adjective form (sc. annus ), after Greek ἰωβηλαῖος adjective (Origen, Epiphanius, etc.), < ἰώβηλος ‘jubilee’ (Josephus Antiq. iii. xii. 3), < Hebrew yōbēl , ‘jubilee’, originally, it seems, ‘ram’, hence ‘ram's horn used as a trumpet’, with which the jubilee year was proclaimed. The Latin form jūbilaeus instead of jōbēlaeus shows association of the Old Testament word with the native Latin jūbilum wild cry, shout, and jūbilāre to shout to, shout, halloo, huzza (see jubil v.); and in Christian Latin there was established an association of sense between these words and the Hebrew ‘jubilee’, which has extended to the modern languages of Western Christendom. In English the word was often, as in the Bible versions, spelt jubile; this was usually, like the French jubilé, of 3 syllables; but it was sometimes a disyllable, and referred directly to Latin jūbilum or medieval Latin jūbilus, in the sense of an exultant shout. Compare also jubil in jubil-trumpet.

Etymology: < jubilee n.Previous versions of the OED give the stress as: ˈjubilee.