EASTER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Easter

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/ˈistər/ Listen

noun

Easter n.

1.

An annual church festival commemorating Christ's resurrection, and occurring on Sunday, the second day after Good Friday. It corresponds to the pascha or passover of the Jews, and most nations still give it this name under the various forms of pascha, pasque, pâque, or pask.

2.

The day on which the festival is observed; Easter day. Note: Easter is used either adjectively or as the first element of a compound; as, Easter day or Easter-day, Easter Sunday, Easter week, Easter gifts, Easter eggs. "Sundays by thee more glorious break, An Easter day in every week." Note: Easter day, on which the rest of the movable feasts depend, is always the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the calendar moon which (fourteenth day) falls on, or next after, the 21st of March, according to the rules laid down for the construction of the calendar; so that if the fourteenth day happen on a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after.

Easter dues (Ch. of Eng.), money due to the clergy at Easter, formerly paid in communication of the tithe for personal labor and subject to exaction. For Easter dues, Easter offerings, voluntary gifts, have been substituted.

Easter egg.

(a)

A painted or colored egg used as a present at Easter.

(b)

An imitation of an egg, in sugar or some fine material, sometimes made to serve as a box for jewelry or the like, used as an Easter present.

verb

Easter v. i. (Naut.) To veer to the east; said of the wind.

See images of 'Easter'

Etymology of 'Easter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Easter" Quotes from Famous Books

... a paradise here," said Brains, "you see, water, the bare bushes by the river, clay everywhere—nothing else.... It is long past Easter and there is still ice on the water and ...

— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... straits. Bayard was asked to give his opinion, and he modestly replied that he had only just arrived and others might know more, but as far as he could learn, the besieged were promised that a large army from Naples and Rome would come to their help in a few days, certainly before Easter, and this was Maundy Thursday. "And on the other hand," he added, "our men have no provisions and the horses are reduced to eating willow leaves, so that each day's delay makes it worse for us. You see, too, the King our master writes to us every day to hasten our movements, therefore I advise ...

— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare

... reconcilable with the scriptural account, which places the crucifixion at the Jewish Easter. An eclipse of the moon, however, was visible at Jerusalem on April 3, 33 A.D., so that it is most probable that the ancient historians confused the two events, and that the eclipse of the moon was the phenomenon which ...

— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... had just been taking place when, on the Sunday morning following the Easter holidays, Dolph Dennison dropped in to see Reed Opdyke. As he more than half expected, he found Olive Keltridge there ahead of him, and it was upon Olive Keltridge that, after a most unceremonious greeting to his host, Dolph turned the fire of ...

— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... Minorcans brought with them from their native country are still kept up. On the evening before Easter Sunday, about eleven o'clock, I heard the sound of a serenade in the streets. Going out, I found a party of young men, with instruments of music, grouped about the window of one of the dwellings, ...

— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

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