holidays

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of holiday.

   Most workers receive a fixed number of paid holidays each year.

   Several national holidays cluster near the end of the year.

   Note

   A plain -s plural that inherits every job holiday has. It can count festival days or days the state declares free from work. In UK and Australian use it is often the normal form for a stretch of leave or for the school break, as in the school holidays. Lenders grant payment holidays, and painters and sonar operators use the word for gaps left uncovered.

2. 2
   nounCanadaUScountableplural

   The weeks of the year in which Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's Day fall, treated together as one festive season.

   Downtown sparkles with lights throughout the holidays.

   Many families gather for big meals over the holidays.

   Similarfestivities, Christmastime, season

   Note

   A season name used in the US and Canada, and it comes with the definite article: the holidays, over the holidays, spending the holidays. It gathers Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's Day under one word and covers the whole stretch rather than any single feast. An Irish listener may hear the time off for travel meaning instead, so the same question can point to quite different plans.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialIrelandcountableplural

   Time off from work, especially an extended period spent traveling away from home.

   The whole family flew to Italy for their holidays.

   He came back from his holidays looking rested and tanned.

   Similarvacation, break, leave, travels

   Note

   An informal Irish use in which the plural names a single stretch of time away, not a count of days. It almost always follows a possessive: you go for your holidays, and while away you are on your holidays. Here the plural form is fixed, so even one trip is still your holidays. The possessive is what sets this idiom apart from the bare adverb on holidays.

4. 4
   verbBritish

   Third-person singular simple present of holiday. Chiefly British.

   My aunt holidays on the same stretch of coast year after year.

   The company director holidays abroad whenever the schedule allows.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is British and intransitive, so it never takes a direct object. A person holidays abroad, in the hills or on the coast. It can mean simply taking time off work or study, or more specifically traveling for pleasure. The same spelling serves the plural noun, and only the sentence tells them apart: she holidays in Spain, against her holidays in Spain.

5. 5
   adverb

   While away on vacation or a break from work or school.

   He's away on holidays for two weeks, so email won't reach him.

   Most of the teachers are on holidays until the new term begins.

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