holiday

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See also: Holiday

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

From Middle English halyday, holyday, halidei, haliȝdei, from Old English hāliġdæġ (“holy day, Sabbath”), equivalent to holy +‎ day. Compare West Frisian hjeldei (“holiday”), Danish helligdag (“holiday”), Norwegian helligdag (“holiday”), Swedish helgdag (“holiday, feast”).

Pronunciation

Noun

holiday (plural holidays)

  1. A day on which a festival, religious event, or national celebration is traditionally observed.
    Synonyms: feast day, holy day
    Today is a Wiccan holiday!
    • 2005, Bill Clinton, My Life‎, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 5:
      Monday, January 18, was the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. In the morning I held a reception for the diplomatic representatives of other nations in the inner quadrangle at Georgetown, addressing them from the steps of Old North Building.
  2. A day declared free from work by the state or government.
    Synonyms: (UK) bank holiday, national holiday
  3. (chiefly UK, Australia) A period of one or more days taken off work for leisure and often travel; often plural.
    Synonyms: leave, time off, (US) vacation; see also Thesaurus:vacation
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:
      No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.
    • 1949 August 11, “A Dreamer’s Holiday”, performed by Perry Como, The Fontaine Sisters, and The Mitchell Ayres Orchestra:
      Climb aboard a butterfly and take off in the breeze. Let your worries flutter by and do the things you please. In the land where dollar bills are falling off the trees. On a dreamer’s holiday. […] Make it a long vacation. Time, there is plenty of. You need no reservation. Just bring along the one you love.
  4. (chiefly UK, Australia) A period during which pupils do not attend their school; often plural; rarely used for students at university (usually: vacation).
    Synonym: (US) vacation
    I want to take a French course this summer holiday.
  5. (finance) A period during which, by agreement, the usual payments are not made.
    a mortgage payment holiday
  6. A gap in coverage, e.g. of paint on a surface, or sonar imagery.[1]
    Synonym: lacuna

Derived terms

Translations

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Translations to be checked

Verb

holiday (third-person singular simple present holidays, present participle holidaying, simple past and past participle holidayed) (chiefly British)

  1. (intransitive) To take a period of time away from work or study.
  2. (British, intransitive) To spend a period of time in recreational travel.

Translations

References

  1. ^ “holiday”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

holiday

  1. Alternative form of halyday
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