Easter

PluralEasters, easters

FormsEasters, Eastering, Eastered

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The Christian feast celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, observed on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 in Western Christianity, with a later range in Eastern churches.

   Easter fell unusually early that year, arriving in the third week of March.

   The bishop led the Easter vigil before a packed congregation.

   Note

   Its date moves from year to year: the feast falls on the first Sunday after the full moon on or next after the vernal equinox, and some keep the Monday too. The name comes from Old English ēastre, seemingly from Ēastre, a proposed Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess whose festival is thought to have fallen near the equinox. It counts like any holiday (five Easters together), and Easter Day and Easter Sunday name it exactly.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The festal season extending from Easter Sunday to Whitsun, lasting roughly seven weeks.

   Throughout Easter the parish held weekly celebrations until Whitsun.

   The flowers remained on the altar for all of Easter.

   SimilarEastertide

   Note

   Here the word stretches from a day to a season, the weeks from Easter to Whitsun, which Eastertide names without ambiguity. Easter Day and Easter Sunday are parts of this span, not synonyms for it. Prepositions usually tell the two apart: "all through Easter" points to the season, while "on Easter" points to the feast day itself. When the difference matters, Eastertide is the safer word.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To observe or celebrate the feast of Easter.

   The parish Eastered with a dawn service and a shared breakfast.

   We Easter each year with old hymns and a feast.

   Note

   A verb made straight from the holiday's name, and it keeps its capital in every form: Easters, Eastering, Eastered. It is intransitive, so a household or parish Easters; it does not Easter something. It sits close to the "spend Easter somewhere" verb, which adds a place, while this one is about keeping the feast.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To pass the Easter season in a particular place.

   The duke always Eastered at his country estate.

   We usually Easter on the coast, returning to the city in May.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   A festival in honor of the goddess Eostre or Ostara, held at the spring equinox or during April.

   The grove gathered to keep Easter with songs to the dawn goddess.

   Easter, for these worshippers, marked the return of spring rather than any resurrection.

   Note

   The goddess this festival honors, Eostre or Ostara, is the one proposed behind the name of the Christian feast. In this use Easter is interchangeable with Eostre and Ostara as the festival's name. It is tied to the equinox or to April rather than to a moon-reckoned Sunday. Without a pagan frame, readers will hear the Christian holiday, so make the context clear.

6. 6
   nounIrelandUKuncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Short for Easter term.

   The case was adjourned until Easter, when the courts resume sitting.

   He read law throughout Easter, cramming before his finals.

   Note

   Two calendars share this shortening. To lawyers it is the third term of the legal year, April to May, when the upper courts of England and Wales, and Ireland, sit. At Cambridge it is the summer term, April to June, which Oxford and Dublin call Trinity term. The university term was modeled on the legal one but keeps different dates, so "until Easter" depends on who is speaking.

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