holiday
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈhɒlɪdeɪ/
ipa: /-di/
ipa: /ˈhɑləˌdeɪ/
Forms: form: holidays
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”).
Senses: examples: text: Today is a Wiccan holiday!
text: 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.
ref: 2005, Bill Clinton, My Life, volume II, New York: Vintage Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 5:
synonyms: feast day
holy day
glosses: A day on which a festival, religious event, or national celebration is traditionally observed.
synonyms: word: bank holiday
word: national holiday
glosses: A day declared free from work by the state or government.
examples: text: How much holiday are you allowed?
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1949 August 11, “A Dreamer’s Holiday”, performed by Perry Como, The Fontaine Sisters, and The Mitchell Ayres Orchestra:
synonyms: word: leave
word: time off
word: vacation
word: annual leave
word: break
word: day off
word: getaway
word: holiday
word: leave
word: leave of absence
word: pause
word: recess
word: time away
word: time off
word: vac
word: vacation
word: vaca
word: vacay
glosses: A period of one or more days taken off work for leisure and often travel; often plural.
examples: text: I want to take a French course this summer holiday.
synonyms: word: vacation
glosses: A period during which pupils do not attend their school; often plural; rarely used for students at university (usually: vacation).
examples: text: a mortgage payment holiday
topics: business
finance
glosses: A period during which, by agreement, the usual payments are not made.
synonyms: lacuna
glosses: A gap in coverage, e.g. of paint on a surface, or sonar imagery.
Derived terms: alcoholiday
all holiday
antiholiday
bank holiday
Bank Holiday
blindman's holiday
blind man's holiday
busman's holiday
drug holiday
enjoy your holiday
go on holiday
half-holiday
Hallmark holiday
hallmark holiday
happy holidays
high days and holidays
High Holidays
holidate
Holiday
holiday camp
holidayer
holiday fic
holidayfic
holiday heart
holiday heart syndrome
holiday home
holidayism
holiday let
holiday-maker
holidaymaker
holidaymaking
holiday ownership
holiday package
holiday park
holiday pay
holiday season
holiday speeches
holiday time
holiday tree
holiday village
holigay
legal holiday
national holiday
nonholiday
package holiday
postholiday
preholiday
public holiday
Roman holiday
school holiday
stat holiday
statutory holiday
summer holiday
unholiday
winter holiday
Related terms: hallow
Halloween
whole