Pinkster

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A spring holiday, the Dutch name for Whitsun or Pentecost, celebrated by early settlers of the Hudson Valley and New York
2. The Dutch-derived term for the Christian feast of Pentecost, observed with festivities in colonial New York and nearby areas
3. A festival marking Whitsun, kept as a celebration with music and gatherings by Dutch communities in the Hudson River region

Etymology: Pinkster is a Dutch festival word that has travelled a long way from the Greek for "fiftieth." It descends from ancient Greek "pentēkostē," literally "fiftieth" (day), counted from Passover to the Christian feast of Pentecost, which falls fifty days after Easter. Dutch took the word in its Christian sense and shaped it into "Pinkster" and the longer "Pinksteren," which name the Whitsun holiday observed in the Netherlands. The Greek word is the same one that gave English "Pentecost," so Pinkster and Pentecost are cousins that entered their respective languages by different routes. The English word arrived through the Church, while the Dutch form reflects the everyday speech of Dutch-speaking communities, where the feast came to be a fixed point of the calendar.