Easters

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The plural form of a festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, often observed with various traditions and customs
2. Referring to multiple instances of a religious observance that marks the arrival of spring and themes of renewal
3. Designating various occasions or events that commemorate the Easter holiday in different contexts or communities

Etymology: "Easters" is simply the plural of "easter," so it describes more than one Easter festival, such as the various Christian spring celebrations observed across different churches or years. The noun it comes from goes back to Old English "eastra" or "eastera," a word for the spring festival that Christians came to celebrate as the resurrection of Christ. Its history is tied to the name of a season and a direction rather than to any religious term. The Old English form belongs to a family of similar words that formed names from compass points, and the source compares it with "norther," "souther," and "wester," which follow the same pattern of a directional word with an agent-like ending. Those related forms show that the word was built on the idea of the east, the direction of the rising sun, which is the sense it began with before it named a feast.

Synonyms: Easter celebrations, Easter events, Resurrections, Pascha