Pentecost
UK /ˈpɛntɪkɒst/ · US /ˈpɛntəˌkɔst/ proper noun
Forms Pentecosts
- proper noun (Judaism) Synonym of Shavuot (“a Jewish harvest festival which falls on the sixth day of Sivan in the spring, fifty days after the second day of the Passover when the omer (“sheaf of barley”) is offered; a ceremony held on that day to commemorate the giving of the Torah (“first five books of the Hebrew scriptures”) to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai”).
- proper noun A festival which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter which commemorates the event described in Acts 2 of the Bible when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles during the Jewish festival of Pentecost (proper noun sense 1), conferring on them the miraculous ability to explain the gospel in languages they did not know; also, the Sunday on which the festival is celebrated.
- proper noun In full day of Pentecost or Pentecost day: the day on which the event commemorated by the festival (proper noun sense 2) occurred; also, the event itself.
- proper noun Synonym of Whitsuntide (“the week beginning on Whitsunday; also, the weekend which includes Whitsunday”).
- proper noun (by extension) The gift of the Holy Spirit to a Christian; also, the occurrence of this.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Feast of Weeks Shavuos Shavuot Whit Whitsun Whitsunday Whit Sunday Whitsuntide Shavous Shabuoth Shavuoth
Etymology
From Middle English Pentecoste (“feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost; season of Pentecost, Whitsuntide; Jewish festival celebrating giving of the law to Moses”), from Old English Pentecosten, also influenced by Anglo-Norman pentecoste, Middle French pentecoste, and Old French pentecoste (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”) (modern French Pentecôte). Both the Old English and Old French words are derived from Ecclesiastical Latin Pentēcostē (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Koine Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Ancient Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “fiftieth”), a noun use of the feminine form of πεντηκοστὸς (pentēkostòs, “fiftieth”, adjective), short for πεντηκοστὸς ἡμέρα (pentēkostòs hēméra, “fiftieth day”) (referring to the Jewish festival falling on the fiftieth day after the second day of the Passover), used in the Bible to translate Hebrew שָׁבוּעוֹת (shāvū'ót, “weeks”). Πεντηκοστὸς (Pentēkostòs) is derived from Proto-Hellenic *penkʷēkontstós, from *pénkʷe (“five”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five; hand”)) + *-kontstós (suffix forming ordinal numbers from twentieth to ninetieth) (whence ; from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥ (“ten”)).
The surname is from Old French and Middle English Pentecost, a personal name perhaps given to one born on Pentecost; also an altered form of Pankhurst. Compare Pancoast.
Compare also Pinkster, a cognate borrowed from Dutch sometimes used regionally or archaically.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A solemn festival of the Jews; --so called because celebrated on the fiftieth day (seven weeks) after the second day of the Passover (which fell on the sixteenth of the Jewish month Nisan); --hence called, also, the Feast of Weeks. At this festival an offering of the first fruits of the harvest was made. By the Jews it was generally regarded as commemorative of the gift of the law on the fiftieth day after the departure from Egypt.
- noun A festival of the Roman Catholic and other churches in commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles; which occurred on the day of Pentecost; --called also Whitsunday.
Etymology [L. pentecoste, Gr. Five, and cf. Pingster.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “Pentecost”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details