Adjectives for New Year: Words for the Night, the Fresh Start and the Year Ahead

Good words to describe the New Year depend on which part of it you mean. For the night itself, try festive, sparkling, noisy and joyful. For the fresh start, try fresh, hopeful, promising and clean. For the year that has just ended, try eventful, memorable, challenging or quiet. For wishes in a card, the classic set is happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous.

Below, the words are grouped by what you are describing, and each one comes with a sentence that shows it in use. After the lists there are lines for cards and messages, the capital-letter and apostrophe questions that trip people up every December, and a short practice set.

Quick picker

Words for New Year’s Eve and the celebration

New Year’s Eve is loud, bright and busy in most places, so the adjectives lean on sound, light and crowds.

• Festive: full of celebration. The whole street had a festive feel, with music from every window.
• Lively: busy and full of energy. The party got lively once the band started.
• Glittering and sparkling: shining with many small lights. She wore a sparkling dress and silver shoes.
• Dazzling: so bright it is hard to look at. The fireworks over the river were dazzling.
• Deafening: extremely loud. At midnight the cheering was deafening.
• Packed and crowded: full of people. The last train home was packed.
• Raucous: loud in a rough, rowdy way, a little critical. The neighbours’ raucous party went on until three.
• Champagne-fuelled (British spelling) or champagne-fueled (American): informal, for a party with plenty of drink. It was a champagne-fuelled night none of them remembered clearly.

Words for the countdown and midnight

• Electric: full of excitement and tension. The air in the square was electric as the clock ticked down.
• Breathless: so excited you can hardly speak. The children were breathless with excitement at the countdown.
• Joyful and jubilant: very happy, jubilant with a sense of triumph. A jubilant crowd sang as the bells rang out.
• Emotional and bittersweet: happy and sad at once, often when someone is missing. It was a bittersweet midnight, the first without Grandad.
• Magical: special in a way that is hard to explain. Use it once, not three times. Watching the fireworks from the hill was magical.

Words for the fresh start

For many people the New Year is less about the party and more about starting again: new plans, new habits, new resolutions.

• Fresh: new and not yet spoiled. Everyone deserves a fresh start.
• Blank and clean: nothing written yet. People also say “a clean slate”. The new diary was blank, and that felt good.
• Hopeful: expecting good things. She began the year hopeful about her new job.
• Promising: likely to turn out well. The first week of the year was promising: two job offers.
• Ambitious: aiming high, said of plans and resolutions. His resolutions were ambitious: run a marathon and learn Spanish.
• Realistic and achievable: the opposite worry. Pick one achievable goal instead of ten vague ones.
• Short-lived: lasting only a little while, the usual fate of a resolution. My gym habit was short-lived; it ended on 9 January.

Words for the year that just ended

End-of-year messages, speeches and diaries look back. Choose the word that fits honestly; not every year was amazing.

• Eventful: a lot happened, good or bad. It has been an eventful year: a new baby and a new house.
• Memorable and unforgettable: worth remembering. Thank you for making this such a memorable year.
• Productive and rewarding: work went well. It was a rewarding year for the whole team.
• Difficult, challenging and tough: hard times. Challenging is the polite workplace word. We know this has been a challenging year for many of you.
• Turbulent: full of sudden change or conflict. After a turbulent year, the company has a new owner.
• Quiet and uneventful: not much happened, which can be a good thing. After the chaos of last year, a quiet one was welcome.

Words for the year ahead

• Bright: likely to be good. Here’s to a bright year ahead.
• Exciting: full of new things. The year ahead is exciting: we open our second shop in March.
• Prosperous: successful, especially with money. Common in formal and business greetings. We wish all our customers a prosperous New Year.
• Uncertain: hard to predict. The year ahead is uncertain, but we are ready.
• Busy and packed: lots planned. The calendar for spring is already packed.

Adjectives for New Year cards and messages

Greetings use a small set of adjectives, often in threes. Pick the set that fits the reader.

For someone who has had a loss or an illness, happy can feel wrong. Peaceful, gentle and kinder are softer choices.

New Year or new year? Capitals and apostrophes

Style guides differ a little, but most English writers follow these patterns:

• The holiday takes capitals: New Year, New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Happy New Year!
• The year as a period of time is usually lower case: We will start the project in the new year.
• The apostrophe: New Year’s Eve (the eve of the New Year) has an apostrophe before the s. New Years Eve without one is a common error.
• “Happy New Year’s” is common in casual American speech, short for “Happy New Year’s Day”. In writing, Happy New Year is the safe form.

Not everyone celebrates on 1 January. Lunar New Year, celebrated in China, Korea, Vietnam and many other places, falls between late January and mid-February, and many of the words above suit it too: festive, bright, prosperous, lucky.

Mix-ups to avoid

• Historic vs historical: a historic year is an important one; a historical year is just one in the past. You usually mean historic, and only when it really was.
• Amazing, awesome, incredible: fine once, tiring when every line uses one. Say what made the year good instead.
• Prosperous means wealthy or successful. It suits business greetings; for a friend who is struggling, better or easier is kinder.
• Last year vs the last year: last year is the previous calendar year; the last year is the past twelve months. It has been a long year works for both.

A model paragraph

The square was packed by ten, and the air grew colder and more electric as midnight came closer. When the countdown started, the noise was deafening. Then the fireworks burst over the river, dazzling and gold, and strangers hugged each other. On the walk home, the streets were quiet and littered with streamers, and the new year felt fresh and slightly unreal, like a clean page nobody had written on yet.

Practice

Choose the best adjective for each sentence.

1. After a ______ year of hospital visits, she hoped for a quiet one. (festive / difficult / dazzling)
2. We wish all our clients a successful and ______ New Year. (raucous / prosperous / blank)
3. The fireworks were ______; we could not look away. (dazzling / uneventful / realistic)
4. My resolution was ______: it lasted four days. (short-lived / promising / jubilant)
5. We stayed in for a ______ evening with board games. (deafening / low-key / turbulent)

Answers: 1 difficult; 2 prosperous; 3 dazzling; 4 short-lived; 5 low-key.

More seasonal word lists: adjectives for Christmas, adjectives for winter and adjectives for January. For a year as a span of time (a leap year, a busy year), see adjectives for year; for parties in general, adjectives for celebration. The full collection by subject is in describing words.

Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.