jubilee

[Verona_82]

Hello,

I have a question about the word 'jubilee'. Can I use it to talk about a person's birthday, for example,

Next week Tom's father is celebrating his 50th jubilee.
or
My grandad has invited all his friends to his 70th jubilee party.

Dictionaries say a jubilee is a special anniversary of an event; however, we don't use the word 'anniversary' to talk about birthdays.

Thank you in advance.

[birdeen's call]

I'm not sure about your examples, but "birth anniversary" is often used when a birthday of a deceased person is celebrated. A couple of days ago, North Korea celebrated the 99th anniversary of the birth of Kim Ir Sen. The jubilee events were quite spectacular.

PS: A birthday of a living person can be a jubilee too, but I believe it needs to involve special celebrations to be that. I'm not sure though.

[freezeframe]

Hello,

I have a question about the word 'jubilee'. Can I use it to talk about a person's birthday, for example,

Next week Tom's father is celebrating his 50th jubilee.
or
My grandad has invited all his friends to his 70th jubilee party.

Dictionaries say a jubilee is a special anniversary of an event; however, we don't use the word 'anniversary' to talk about birthdays.

Thank you in advance.

I think you'd need to include the word birthday to indicate what kind of jubilee it is: "his 50th-birthday jubilee".

There are set phrases to describe specific milestones:

25th anniversary = silver jubilee
50th anniversary = golden jubilee
60th (people) or 75th (events) anniversary = diamond jubilee

BTW If you're talking about the party, it should be a pretty big party to be a jubilee, in my opinion. It can't be just a slice of bad cake in the back of the local pub.

[Verona_82]

Thank you! The replies have been helpful.

Birthday jubilee? I'll remember that. In Russian, we use 'jubilee' a lot, when referring to either a party or a person's birthday itself, hence the question. I guess it's just one more time when a native language turns out to be a false friend.