Fastern

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic Scottish and northern English name for Shrove Tuesday, the day before the fasting season of Lent begins
2. A dialect term for Shrove Tuesday, the feast day that falls just before the Lenten fast in the Christian calendar
3. Old regional name for the day preceding Lent, traditionally marked by feasting and the use-up of rich foods before fasting

Etymology: Fastern's Eve, the evening before Ash Wednesday, takes its name from "fastern", an Old English-derived word for the period of fasting observed before Lent. The word is the older form of "fasting" with the same sense of abstinence from food, and it survives in Scotland and northern England mainly in this one fixed phrase. Its base is Old English "fæsten", meaning a fast or a fortified place, and the two senses share a root that also gives English "fast" in its abstaining sense. The "-en" ending is a noun-forming suffix, and the same ending appears in "fasten", which comes from the same Old English stem but has drifted in meaning toward securing or tying. Fastern's Eve is therefore the eve of the fasting season, the last night before the abstinence began.