easter

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A Christian feast commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated on the first Sunday (and Monday) following the full moon that occurs on or next after the vernal equinox, ranging in most of Western Christianity (such as Protestantism and Roman Catholicism) from March 22 to April 25, and in Eastern Christianity (such as the Coptic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church) from April 4 to May 8.

   “We spent each of the past five Easters together as a family.”

   “During the Easter season, the Russians are planning “a great battle in Donbas,” the Russian-occupied region in Ukraine’s far east. “This is not Christian behavior at all, as I understand it. On Easter they will kill, and they will be killed.””

2. (countable, uncountable)Eastertide (“the period from Easter to Whitsun”).

   “Meronyms: Easter Day, Easter Sunday”

3. (countable, dated, figuratively, specifically, uncountable)Usually preceded by an inflection of make: the act of receiving the Eucharist during Easter.
4. (Ireland, UK, abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable)Ellipsis of Easter term.
5. (countable, uncountable)A festival held in honour of the goddess Eostre or Ostara, celebrated at the vernal equinox or within the month of April; Eostre, Ostara.
6. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)The Jewish Passover.

   “After two dayes folowed eſter⸝ and the dayes of ſwete breed. And the hye preſtꝭ [prestis] and ſcrybꝭ [scrybis] ſought meanes⸝ howe they myght take hym [Jesus] by crafte and putt hym to deeth.”

7. An easterly wind (a wind blowing from the east); especially, a strong one; a storm of such winds.

   “A northeaster in one place may be an easter, a norther, or a souther in some other locality.”

name

1. A surname.

verb

1. (intransitive)To celebrate Easter.
2. (intransitive)To spend the Easter season in some place.
3. To move toward the east.

   “Off Tilbury the Alcyone's topsail-yard was carried away just forward of the slings; she set a jib-headed one; at Thames Haven the wind eastered ...”

   “At 5 the wind eastered and came E. by N., that we went 2 knots […] .”

adj

1. (dialectal)Eastern.

   “In the mean while, as our apartment was a corner one, and looked both east and north, I ran to the easter casement to look after Drummond.”

   “This is properly two, if not three towns — there being an Easter Anstruther and a Wester Anstruther, both burghs, besides a large fishing village […]”

   “There had been a Little and a Meikle, and an Easter and a Wester Coull two centuries ago; and there had been a castle on the property […]”

   “It is styled, as we have seen, Wester Rires, which implies an Easter Rires; and this last portion of it probably lay to the north-east, and included […]”

   “'The fact remains that there is an Easter Fintry and a Wester Fintry in this part of the world. Just as there is an Easter Golford and a Wester Golford, ...”

2. (comparative, form-of)comparative form of east: more east