festival
Pluralfestivals
Pluralfestivals
- 1A special event or program of events that celebrates or promotes a particular theme or part of community life, and often recurs at regular intervals.
The film festival draws directors and critics from around the world each spring.
Local farms sponsor the harvest festival, setting up stalls along the main street.
UsageUsually after a word naming the theme: a film festival, a music festival. People go to a festival and play at one.
Similarfair, fete, gala, carnival, celebration
- 2A day or period of religious feasting and celebration, such as a feast in a church calendar or the rites held in honor of a god.
The Festival of Tabernacles lasted seven days, during which families lived in temporary shelters.
Pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem three times a year for the major festivals.
UsageCapitalized in a feast's name, often with of: the Festival of Lights, the Festival of Weeks.
Note
The sacred sense, at home in Scripture and the liturgical year. When the Holman Christian Standard Bible translates Deuteronomy 16:16, the three yearly gatherings before the Lord become the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Booths.
- 3Describing something that belongs to or is used on a feast or feast day, or that is festive in character, as in festival clothes or a festival meal.
By midday the old town had taken on a festival atmosphere, with lanterns strung between the houses and families crowding the square for the saint's day.
Villagers in festival dress filled the lanes on the saint's day.
UsageUsually before a noun: festival dress, a festival mood. After a verb, festive is the usual word: the town felt festive.
Similarfestive, celebratory
Note
The oldest use of the word. English borrowed festival as an adjective, through Old French from Late Latin fēstīvālis, and it displaced the native Old English frēols. Edmund Spenser could still write of people honoring the gods "in their festiuall resort" in The Faerie Queene (1590).
Less common meaning
- 4A bread made from cornmeal and fried in oil.
The roadside stall served jerk pork with festival and fried plantain.
He tore off a piece of festival and dipped it in the pepper sauce.
UsageTreated like bread: some festival, a piece of festival, or festival with fried fish.
Note
Jamaican and wider Caribbean usage moves the word from the calendar to the plate. On a menu or at a roadside stall the context makes it clear, but readers outside the Caribbean are unlikely to know this sense, so writing for a wider audience should explain it as fried cornbread the first time it appears.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The fried-cornbread sense is Jamaican and Caribbean. en.wiktionary.org
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Origin
This came through Middle English and Old French festival ('festive'), from Late Latin fēstīvālis and Latin fēstīvus ('festive'): essentially 'festive' plus '-al'. The noun is a shortened form of 'festival day' (Middle English festival dai, 'feast day'), and it displaced the native Old English word frēols.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Festival came through Middle English and Old French festival, meaning 'festive', from Late Latin fēstīvālis and Latin fēstīvus, meaning 'festive'. en.wiktionary.org
- The word can be analysed as 'festive' plus '-al'. en.wiktionary.org
- The noun is shortened from 'festival day', from Middle English festival dai, meaning 'feast day'. en.wiktionary.org
- Festival displaced the native Old English word frēols. en.wiktionary.org