Easter

Easter Vocabulary


Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pancake Day (the day before the beginning of Lent, when people traditionally eat pancakes. It is the day before Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent ). In the Latin countries it is the last day of the carnival, called by the French Mardi Gras

Ash Wednesday: miércoles de ceniza

Lent: Old Eng. lencten, =spring (related to long, length, lengthen because the days are getting longer) cuaresma. a season of fasting (ayuno, fast: ayunar), prayer, and penance.

Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday: domingo de ramos.

Holy Week: semana santa

Easter: (also Eastertime) the period that includes Easter Day and the days close to it: the Easter holidays / vacation; at Easter.

Maundy Thursday (also Holy Thursday): Jueves Santo. Etymology: from M.E. maunde "the Last Supper," also "ceremony of washing the feet," from O.Fr. mandé, from L. mandatum "commandment," in reference to the opening words of the church service for this day, Mandatum novum do vobis "A new commandment I give unto you" (John xiii.34), words supposedly spoken by Jesus to the Apostles after washing their feet at the Last Supper.

Good Friday: Viernes Santo (late 13c., from good in sense of "holy" (e.g. the good book "the Bible," 1896)

Holy Saturday: is the day after Good Friday. It is the day before Easter and the last day of Holy Week, in which Christians prepare for Easter. This day commemorates the day that Jesus Christ's body lay in the tomb.

Easter: Easter Day or Easter Sunday (also Resurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday). It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after 21 March.

Easter Monday is the day after Easter Sunday and is celebrated as a holiday in some largely Christian cultures, especially Roman Catholic cultures

Easter egg:
1.an egg made of chocolate that is given as a present and eaten at Easter
2. an egg with a shell that is painted and decorated at Easter.
Children look forward to Easter Sunday because they are given chocolate Easter eggs. These are also popular with adults and millions are sold in the weeks before Easter. Many are packed in coloured foil in brightly-coloured boxes decorated with pictures of cartoon characters. Others are decorated with sugar flowers and wrapped in clear paper tied with a ribbon. Some shops write the person’s name on the egg with icing (AmE frosting). Inside each egg are sweets or chocolates. Smaller eggs with a sweet cream inside are also popular. Eggs represent new life and the start of spring, and children sometimes colour the shells of real eggs at home. In some parts of Britain Easter is a time for traditional events such as egg-rolling (a race, where children push an egg through the grass with a long-handled spoon. The children compete to see who can roll their egg the furthest).

Easter Bunny: When American children wake up on Easter morning, they hope that the Easter Bunny has been. The Easter Bunny is an imaginary rabbit, and parents tell their children that it goes from house to house while they are sleeping. The Easter Bunny brings an Easter basket with chocolate eggs and other sweet things or hides Easter eggs in the house, small plastic eggs filled with sweets or little presents. When they wake up all the children run about trying to find the eggs. The Easter Bunny also often brings chocolate in the shape of a rabbit. In Britain some families now organize an Easter egg hunt, and people buy chocolate rabbits as well as eggs.

Easter bonnets: (bonnet: a woman’s hat) It was once common for people to wear new clothes to church on this day. Women wore new hats, called Easter bonnets. Today, people sometimes make elaborately decorated Easter bonnets for fun.

Maundy money: specially produced silver coins given each year by the British king or queen to a selected group of poor people on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter). The ceremony continues a tradition which began in the Middle Ages. At that time the king or queen washed the feet of the poor people, in memory of Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet.